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BOHEMIAN DAYS 


2Ti)m American Calcs 


3 3 - 2 - 

sTj 


BY 

GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND 

9 0 

“ GA TH ” 


“ And David arose and fled to Gath. And he changed his behavior. And 
every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that 
was discontented gathered themselves unto him. And the time that David dwelt 
in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months.” 



THE AUTHOR’S PRIVATE ISSUE 
242 West 23RD Street 
NEW YORK CITY 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, 

By GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 


The Burr Printing House 
and Steam Type-Setting Office, 
Cor. Frankfort and Jacob Sts., 

NEW YORK. 


-S-A-A 2 Q, IVH 




£ 


TO TEN FRIENDS AT DINNER, 

Gilsey House, New York,- 
April 21, 1879; 

WHO MADE THIS PUBLICATION 

A PROMISE AND AN OBLIGATION. 






PREFACE. 


So far from the first tale in this book being of political 
motive, it was written among the subjects of it, and read to 
several of them in 1864. Perhaps the only souvenir of refugee 
and “skcdaddler” life abroad during the war ever published, 
its preservation may one day be useful in the socialistic 
archives of the South, to whose posterity slavery will seem 
almost a mythical thing. With as little bias in the second 
tale, I have etched the young Northern truant abroad during 
the secession. The closing tale, more recently written, in 
the midst of constant toil and travel, is an attempt to recall 
an old suburb, now nearly erased and illegible by the ex- 
tension of a great city, and may be considered a home 
American picture about contemporary with the European 
tales. 

















































































































CONTENTS. 


SHORT NOVELS. 


The Rebel Colony in Paris 13 

% 

Married Abroad 99 

The Deaf Man of Kensington 155 


CHORDS. 


Bohemia 9 

Little Grisette 93 

The Pigeon Girl 149 

The Dead Bohemian 279 






























































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) 









BOHEMIA. 


The farther I do grow from La Boheme , 

The more I do regret that foolish shame 

Which made me hold it something to conceal, 

And so I did myself expatriate ; 

For in my pulses and my feet I feel 
That wayward realm was still my own estate ; 

Wise wagged our tongues when the dear nights grew 
late, 

And quainter, clearer, rose our quick conceits. 

And pure and mutual were our social sweets. 

Oh ! ever thus convivial round the gate 
Of Letters have the masters and the young 
Loitered away their enterprises great, 

Since Spenser revelled in the halls of state, 

And at his tavern rarest Jonson sung. 





THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 



THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


i. 

THE EXILES. 

In the latter part of October, 1863, seven very anx- 
ious and dilapidated personages were assembled under 
the roof of an old, eight-storied tenement, near the 
church of St. Sulpice, in the city of Paris. 

The seven under consideration had reached the 
catastrophe of their decline — and rise. They had met 
in solemn deliberation to pass resolutions to that effect, 
and take the only congenial means for replenishment 
and reform. This means lay in miniature before a 
caged window, revealed by a superfluity of light — a 
roulette-table, whereon the ball was spinning indus- 
triously from the practised fingers of Mr. Auburn 
Risque, of Mississippi. 

Mr. Auburn Risque had a spotted eye and a bluishly 
cold face ; his fingers were the only movable part of 
him, for he performed respiration and articulation with 
the same organ — his nose ; and the sole words vouch- 
safed by this at present were : “ Black — black — black 
— white — black — white — white — black” — etc. 

The five surrounding parties were carefully noting 
upon fragments of paper the results of the experiment, 


i4 


THE REBEL COLONY LN BARIS. 


and likewise Master Lees, the lessee of the chamber — a 
pale, emaciated youth, sitting up in bed, and ciphering 
tremulously, with bony fingers ; even he, upon whom 
disease had made auguries of death, looked forward to 
gold, as the remedy which science had not brought, 
for a wasted youth of dissipation and incontinence. 

They were all representatives of the recently insti- 
tuted Confederacy. Most of them had dwelt in Paris 
anterior to the war, and, habituated to its luxuries, 
scarcely recognized themselves, now that they were 
forlorn and needy. Note Mr. Pisgah, for example — a 
Georgian, tall, shapely and handsome, with the gray 
hairs of his thirtieth year shading his working temples ; 
he had been the most envied man in Paris ; no woman 
could resist the magnetism of his eye ; he was almost 
a match for the great Berger at billiards ; he rode like 
a centaur on the Boulevards, and counterfeited Apollo 
at the opera and the masque. His credit was good for 
fifty thousand francs any day in the year. He had 
travelled in far and contiguous regions, conducted in- 
trigues at Athens and Damascus, and smoked his pipe 
upon the Nile and among the ruins of Sebastopol. 
Without principle, he was yet amiable, and with his 
dashing style and address, one forgot his worthlessness. 

How keenly he is reminded of it now ! He cannot 
work, he has no craft nor profession ; he knew enough 
to pass for an educated gentleman ; not enough to earn 
a franc a day. He is the protege at present of his 
washerwoman, and can say, with some governments, 
that his debts are impartially distributed. He has only 
two fears — those of starvation in France, and a sol- 
dier’s death in America. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


T 5 


The prospect of a debtor’s prison at Clichy has long 
since ceased to be a terror. There, he would be se- 
cure of sustenance and shelter, and of these, at liberty, 
he is doubtful every day. 

Still, with his threadbare coat, he haunts the Casino 
and the Valentino of evenings ; for some mistresses of 
a former day send him billets. 

He lies in bed till long after noon, that he may 
not have pangs of hunger ; and has yet credit for 
a dinner at an obscure cremery. When this last confi- 
dence shall have been forfeited, what must result to 
Pisgah ? 

He is striving to anticipate the answer with this ex- 
periment at roulette ; for he has a “ system” whereby 
it is possible to break any gambling bank — Spa, Baden, 
Wisbaden or Homburg. The others have systems also, 
from Auburn Risque to Simp, the only son of the rich- 
est widow in Louisiana, who disbursed of old in Paris 
ten thousand dollars annually. 

His house at Passy was a palace in miniature, and his 
favorite a tragedy queen. She played at the Folies 
Dramatiques, and drove three horses of afternoons 
upon the Champs Elys6es. She had other engage- 
ments, of course, when Mr. Lincoln’s “paper block, 
ade” stopped Master Simp’s remittances, and he passed 
her yesterday upon the Rue Rivoli, with the Russian 
ambassador’s footman at her back, but she only touched 
him with her silks. 

Simp studied a profession, and was a volunteer coun- 
sel in the memorable case of Jeems Pinckney against 
Jeems Rutledge. His speech, on that occasion, occu- 
pied in delivery just three minutes, and set the court- 


i6 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


room in a roar. He paid the village editor ten dollars 
to compose it, and the same sum to publish it. 

“ If you could learn it for me,” said Simp, anx- 
iously, “ I would give you twenty dollars.” 

This, his first and last public appearance, was con- 
ditional to the receipt from his moiher, of six thousand 
acres of land and eighty negroes. It might have been 
a close calculation for a mathematician to know how 
many black sweat-drops, how many strokes of the raw- 
hide, went into the celebrated dinner at the Maison 
Doree, wherein Master Simp and only his lady had 
thirty-four courses, and eleven qualities of wine, and a 
bill of eight hundred francs. 

In that prosperous era, his inalienable comrade had 
been Mr. Andy Plade, who now stood beside him, in- 
tensely absorbed. 

Of late Mr. Plade’s affection had been transferred 
to Hugenot, the only possessor of an entire franc in 
the chamber. Hugenot was a short-set individual, in 
pumps and an eye-glass, who had been but a few days 
in the city. He was decidedly a man of sentiment. 
He called the Confederacy ‘ ‘ ow-ah cause, ’ ’ and claimed 
to have signed the call for the first secession meeting 
in the South. 

He asserted frankly that he was of French extraction, 
but only hinted that he was of noble blood. He had 
been a hatter, but carefully ignored the fact ; and, 
having run the blockade with profitable cargoes fourteen 
times, had settled down to be a respectable trader 
between Havre and Nassau. Mr. Plade shared much 
of the sentiment and some of the money of this illus- 
trious personage. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


1 7 


There were rumors abroad that Plade himself had 
great, but embarrassed, fortunes. 

He was one of the hundred thousand chevaliers who 
hail the advent of war as something which will hide 
their nothingness. 

“ I knew it,” said Auburn Risque, at length, pinch- 
ing the ball between his hard palms as if it were the 
creature of his will. “ My system is good ; yours do 
not validate themselves. You are novices at gam- 
bling ; I am an old blackleg.” It was as he had said ; 
the method of betting which he proposed had seemed 
to be successful. He staked upon colors ; never 
upon numbers ; and alternated from white to black 
after a fixed, undeviating routine. 

Less by experiment than by faith, the others gave 
up their own theories to adopt his own. They resolved 
to collect every available sou, and, confiding it to the 
keeping of Mr. Risque, send him to Germany, that he 
might beggar the bankers, and so restore the Southern 
Colony to its wonted prosperity. 

Hugenot delivered a short address, wishing “ the 
cause ” good luck, but declining to subscribe anything. 
He did not doubt the safety of “ the system” of course, 
but had an hereditary antipathy to gaming. The pre- 
cepts of all his ancestry were against it. 

Poor Lees followed in a broken way, indicating 
sundry books, a guitar, two pairs of old boots, and a 
canary bird, as the relics of his fortune. These, Andy 
Plade, who possessed nothing, but thought he might 
borrow a trifle, volunteered to dispose of, and Freckle, 
a Missourian, who was tolerated in the colony only 
because he could be plucked, asserted enthusiastically, 


i8 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


and amid great sensation, that he yet had three hun- 
dred francs at the banker’s, his entire capital, all of 
which he meant to devote to the most reliable project 
in the world. 

At this episode, Pisgah, whose misfortunes had quite 
shattered his nerves, proposed to drink at Freckle’s 
expense to the success of the system, and Hugenot was 
prevailed upon to advance twenty-one sous, while Simp 
took the order to the adjacent marchand duvin. 

When they had all filled, Hugenot, looking upon 
himself in the light of a benefactor, considered it neces- 
sary to do something. 

“ Boys,” he said, wiping his eyes with the lining of 
a kid glove, 4 ‘ will you esteem it unnatural, that a Suth 
Kurlinian, who sat — at an early age, it is true — at the 
feet of the great Kulhoon, should lift up his voice and 
weep in this day of ou-ah calamity ?” 

(Sensation, aggrieved by the sobs of Freckle, who, 
unused to spirits and greatly affected — chokes.) 

“When I cast my eye about this lofty chambah” 
(here Lees, who hasn’t been out of it for a year, hides 
himself beneath the bed-clothes) ; “ when I see these 
noble spih-its dwelling obscu’ and penniless ; when I 
remembah that two short years ago, they waih of inde- 
pendent fohtunes — one with his sugah, anotha with his 
cotton, a third with his tobacco, in short, all the bless- 
ings of heaven bestowed upon a free people — niggars, 
plantations, pleasures ! — I can but lay my pooah hand 
upon the manes of my ancestry, and ask in the name 
of ou-ah cause, is there justice above or retribution 
upon the earth !” 

A profound silence ensued, broken only by Mr. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


1 9 


Plade, who called Hugenot a man of sentiment, and 
slapped his back ; while Freckle fell upon Pisgah’s 
bosom, and wished that his stomach was as full as his 
heart. 

Mr. Simp, who had been endeavoring to recollect 
some passages of his address, in the case of the Jeems- 
es, for that address had an universal application, and 
might mean as much now as on the original occasion, 
brought down one of those decayed boots which the 
7narchand des habits had thrice refused to buy, and 
said, stoutly : 

‘“By Gad ! think of it, liyuh am I, a beggah, by 
Gad, without shoes to my feet, suh ! The wuth of one 
nigga would keep me now for a yeah. At home, by 
Gad, I could afford to spend the wuth of a staving 
field hand every twenty-fouah houahs. I’ll sweah !’’ 
cried Simp in conclusion, “ I call this hard.” 

“ I suppose the Yankees have confiscated my stocks 
in the Havre steamers,” muttered Andy Plade. “ I 
consider they have done me out of twenty thousand 
dollars.” 

“ Brotha writes to me, last lettah,” continued 
Freckle, who had recovered, “ every tree cut off the 
plantation — every nigga run off, down to old Sim, a 
hundred years old — every panel of fence toted away — 
no bacon in smoke-house — not an old rip in stable — no 
corn, coon, possum, rabbit, fox, dog or hog within ten 
miles of the place — house stands in a mire — mire stands 
in desert — Yankee general going to conscrip brotha. 
I save myself, sp’ose, for stahvation.” 

“ Wait till you come down to my condition,” fal- 
tered the proprietor, making emphasis with his meagre 


20 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


finger — “ I have been my own enemy ; the Yankees 
will but finish what is almost consummated now. I tell 
you, boys, I expect to die in this room ; I shall never 
quit this bed. I am offensive, wasted, withered, and 
would look gladly upon Pere la Chaise,* if with my 
bodily maladies my mind was not also diseased. I have 
no fortitude ; I am afraid of death !” 

The room seemed to grow suddenly cold, and the 
faces of all the inmates became pale ; they looked 
more squalid than ever — the threadbare curtains, the 
rheumatic chairs, the soiled floor, sashes and wall- 
paper. 

Mr. Hugenot fumbled his shirt-bosom nervously, 
and his diamond pin, glaring like a lamp upon the 
worn garbs and faces of his compatriots, showed them 
still wanner and meaner by contrast. 

“ Put the blues under your feet !” cried Auburn 
Risque, in his hard, practical way ; “ my system will 
resurrect the dead. You shall have clothes upon your 
backs, shoes upon your feet, specie in your pockets, 
blood in your veins. Let us sell, borrow and pawn ; 
we can raise a thousand francs together. I will return 
in a fortnight with fifty thousand !” 

II. 

RAISING THE WIND. 

The million five hundred thousand folks in Paris, 
who went about their pleasures that October night, 
knew little of the sorrows of the Southern Colony. 

Pisgah dropped in at the Chateau des Fleurs to beg 
* The great Cemetery of Paris. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


21 


a paltry loan from some ancient favorite. The time 
had been, when, after a nightly debauch, he had placed 
two hundred francs in her morning’s coffee-cup. It 
was mournful now to mark his premature gray hairs, 
as, resting his soiled, faded coat-sleeve upon her man- 
teau de velour , he saw the scorn of his poverty in the 
bright eyes which had smiled upon him, and made his 
request so humbly and so feverishly. 

“ Give me back, Feefine,” he faltered, “ only that 
fifty francs I once tied in a gold band about your 
spaniel’s neck. I am poor, my dear — that will not 
move you, I know, but I am going to Germany to play 
at the banks ; if I win, I swear to pay you back ten 
francs for one !” 

There was never a lorette who did not love to gamble. 
She stopped a passing gentleman and borrowed the 
money ; the other saw it transferred to Pisgah, with 
an expression of contempt, and, turning to a friend, 
called him aloud a withering name. 

Poor Pisgah ! he would have drawn his bowie-knife 
once, and defied even the emperor to stand between 
the man and himself after such an appellation. He 
would have esteemed it a favor now to be what he was 
named, and only lifted his creased beaver gratefully, 
and hobbled nervously away, and stopping near by at a 
cafe drank a great glass of absinthe, with almost a pray- 
erful heart. 

At Mr. Simp’s hotel in the Rue Monsieur Le Prince 
much business was transacted after dark. Monsieurs 
Freckle and Plade were engaged in smuggling away 
certain relics of furniture and wearing apparel. 

Mr. Simp already owed his landlord fifteen months’ 


22 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


rent, for which the only security was his diminishing 
effects. 

If the mole-eyed concierge should suspect foul play 
with these, Simp would be turned out of doors imme- 
diately and the property confiscated. 

Singly and in packages the collateral made its exit. 
A half-dozen regal chemises made to order at fifty 
francs apiece ; a musical clock picked up at Genoa for 
twelve louis ; a patent boot-jack and an ebony billiard 
cue ; a Paduan violin ; two statuettes of more fidelity 
than modesty, to be sold pound for pound at the cur- 
rent value of bronze ; divers pipes — articles of which 
Mr. Simp had earned the title of connoisseur, by in- 
vesting several hundred dollars annually — a gutta- 
percha self-adjusting dog-muzzle, the dog attached to 
which had been seized by H. M. Napoleon III. in lieu 
of taxes, etc., etc. 

Everything passed out successfully except one pair 
of pantaloons which protruded from Freckle’s vest, and 
that unfortunate person at once fell under suspicion of 
theft. All went in the manner stated to Mr. Lees’ 
chamber, he being the only colonist who did not hazard 
the loss of his room, chiefly because nobody else would 
rent it, and in part because his landlady, having 
swindled him for six or eight years, had compunctions 
as to ejecting him. 

Thence in the morning, true to his aristocratic in- 
stincts, Mr. Simp departed in a voiture for the central 
bureau of the Mont de Piete,* in the Rue Blanc 
Manteau. His face had become familiar there of late. 
He carried his articles up from the curb, while the 
* The government pawnbroking shop. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


23 


cocker grinned and winked behind, and taking his turn 
in the throng of widows, orphans, ouvriers, and profli- 
gates and unfortunates of all loose conditions, Simp 
was a subject of much unenviable remark. He came 
away with quite an armful of large yellow certificates, 
and the articles were registered to Monsieur Simp, a 
French subject ; for with such passports went all his 
compatriots. 

Andy Plade spent twenty-four hours, meanwhile, at 
the Grand Hotel, enacting the time-honored part of all 
things to all men. 

He differed from the other colonists, in that they 
were weak — he was bad. He spoke several languages 
intelligibly, and knew much of many things — art, finan- 
ces, geography — just those matters on which newly 
arrived Americans desire information. His address 
was even fascinating. One suspected him to be a 
leech, but pardoned the motive for the manner. He 
called himself a broken man. The war had blighted 
his fair fortunes. For a time he had held on hopefully, 
but now meant to breast the current no longer. His 
time was at the service of anybody. Would monsieur 
like to see the city ? He knew its every cleft and den. 
So he had lived in Paris five years — in the same man- 
ner, elsewhere, all his life. 

A few men heard his story and helped him — one 
Northern man had given him employment ; his grati- 
tude was defalcation. 

To-day he has sounded Hugenot ; but that man of 
sentiment alluded to the business habits of his ancestry, 
and intimated that he did not lend. 

“ Ou-ah cause, Andy,” he says, with a flourish, “ is 


24 


THE REBEL COLONY LN PARIS. 


now negotiating a loan. When ou-ah beloved country 
is reduced to such straits, that she must borow from 
strangers, I cannot think of relieving private indL 
gence. ’ ’ 

Later in the day, however, Mr. Plade made the 
acquaintance of an ingenuous youth from Pennsylvania, 
and obtaining a hundred francs, for one day only, sent 
it straightway to Mr. Auburn Risque. 

A second meeting was held at Lees’ the third day 
noon, when the originator of the “ system” sat icily 
grim behind a table whereon eleven hundred francs re- 
posed ; and the whole colony, crowding breathlessly 
around, was amazed to note how little the space taken 
up by so great a sum. 

They opened a crevice that Lees might be gladdened 
with the sight of the gold ; for to-day that invalid was 
unusually dispirited, and could not quit his bed. 

“ We are down very low, old Simp,” said Pisgah, 
smilingly, “ when either the possession or the loss of 
that amount can be an event in our lives.” 

‘‘You will laugh that it was so, a week hence,” an- 
swered Auburn Risque — “ when you lunch at Peters’ 
while awaiting my third check for a thousand dollars 
apiece. ’ ’ 

‘‘I don’t believe in the system,” growled Lees, 
opening a cold draft from his melancholy eyes ; ‘‘ I 
don’t feel that I shall ever spend a sou of the winnings. 
No more will any of you. There will be no winnings 
to spend. Auburn Risque will lose. He always 
does.” 

“ If you were standing by at the play I should,” 
cried Risque, while the pock-marks in his face were 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


2 5 


like the thawings of ice. “ You would croak like an 
old raven, and I should forget my reckoning.” 

“ Come now, Lees,” cried all the others ; “ you 
, must not see bad omen for the Colony;” and they 
said, in undertone, that Lees had come to be quite a 
bore. , 

They were all doubtful, nevertheless. Their crisis 
could not be exaggerated. Their interest was almost 
devout. , Three thousand miles from relief ; two seas 
between, one of water and one of fire ; at home, con- 
scription, captivity, death : the calamity of Southerners 
abroad would merit all sympathy, if it had not been 
induced by waste, and unredeemed by either fortitude 
or regret. 

The unhappy Freckle, whose luckless admiration of 
the rest had been his ruin, felt that a sonorous prayer, 
such as his old father used to make in the Methodist 
meeting-house, would be a good thing wherewith to 
freight Auburn Risque for his voyage. When men 
stake everything on a chance, it is natural to look up 
to somebody who governs chances ; but Andy Plade, 
in his loud, bad way, proposed a huge toast, which 
they took with a cheer, and quite confused Hugenot, 
who had a sentiment apropos. 

Then they escorted Auburn Risque to the Chemin 
de fer du Nord,* and packed him away in a third-class 
carriage, wringing his hand as if he were their only 
hope and friend in the world. 

* Northern Railway Station, 


26 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


III. 

DEATH IN EXPATRIATION. 

It was a weary day for the Southern Colony. They 
strolled about town — to the Masque, the Jardin des 
Plantes, the Champ des Mars, the Marche aux Chev- 
aux, and finally to Freckle’s place, and essayed -a lugu- 
brious hour at whist. 

“It is poor fun, Pisgah,” said Mr. Simp, at last, 
“if we remember that afternoon at poker when you 
won eight thousand francs and I lost six thousand.’’ 

The conversation forever returned to Spa and Baden- 
Baden, and many wagers were made upon the amount 
of money which Risque would gain — first day — second 
day — first week, and so forth. 

At last they resolved to send to Lees’ chamber for 
the roulette-board, and pass the evening in experiment. 
They drew Jacks for the party who should fetch it, and 
Freckle, always unfortunate, was pronounced the man. 
He went cheerfully, thinking it quite an honor to serve 
the Colony in any capacity — for Freckle, representing 
a disaffected State, had fallen under suspicion of luke- 
warm loyalty, and was most anxious to clear up any 
such imputation. 

His head was full of odd remembrances as he crossed 
the Place St. Sulpice : his plain old father at the old 
border home, close and hard-handed, who went afield 
with his own negroes, and made his sons take the 
plough-handles, and marched them all before him every 
Sunday to the plank church, and led the singing him- 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


2 7 


self with an ancient tuning-fork, and took up the col- 
lection in a black velvet bag fastened to a pole. 

He had foreseen the war, and sent his son abroad to 
avoid it. He had given Freckle sufficient money to 
travel for five years, and told him in the same sentence 
to guard his farthings and say his prayers. Freckle 
could see the old man now, with a tear poised on his 
tangled eyelashes, asking a farewell benediction from 
the front portico, upon himself departing, while every 
woolly-head was uncovered, and the whole assembled 
“ property” had groaned “ Amen” together. 

That was patriarchal life ; what was this ? Freckle 
thought this much finer and higher. He had not 
asked himself if it was better. He was rather ashamed 
of his father now, and anxious to be a dashing gentle- 
man, like Plade or Pisgah. 

Why did he play whist so badly ? How chanced it 
that, having dwelt eighteen months in Paris, he could 
speak no French ? His only grisette had both robbed 
him and been false to him. He knew that the Colony 
tolerated him, merely. Was he indeed verdant, as 
they had said — obtuse, stupid, lacking wit ? 

After all, he repeated to himself, what had the 
Colony done for him ? He had not now twenty francs 
to his name, and was a thousand francs in debt ; he 
had essayed to study medicine, but balked at the first 
lesson. Yet, though these suggestions, rather than 
convictions, occurred to him, they stirred no latent 
ambition. If he had ever known one high resolution, 
the Southern Colony had pulled it up, and sown the 
place with salt. 

So he reached Master Lees’ tenement ; it was a long 


2 8 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


ascent, and toward the last stages perilous ; the stairs 
had a fashion of curving round unexpectedly and bend- 
ing against jambs and blank walls. He was quite out 
of breath when he staggered against Lees’ door and 
burst it open. 

The light fell almost glaringly upon the bare, con- 
tracted chamber ; for this was next to the sky and 
close up to the clouds, and the window looked toward 
the west, where the sun, sinking majestically, was throw- 
ing its brightest smiles upon Paris, as it bade adieu. 

And there, upon his tossed, neglected bed, in the 
full blaze of the sunset, his sharp, sallow jaws dropped 
upon his neck, his cheeks colorless and concave, his 
great eyes open wide and his hair unsmoothed, Master 
Lees lay dead, with the roulette table upon his 
breast ! 

When Freckle had raised himself from the platform 
at the base of the first flight of stairs, down which he 
had fallen in his fright, he hastened to his own cham- 
ber and gave the Colony notice of the depletion of its 
number. 

A deep gloom, as may be surmised, fell upon all. 
Lees had been no great favorite of late, and it had 
been the trite remark for a year that he was looking 
like death ; but at this juncture the tidings came 
ominously enough. One member, at least, of the 
Southern Colony would never share the winnings of 
Auburn Risque, and now that they referred to his fore- 
bodings of the morning, it was recalled that with his 
own demise, he had prophesied the failure of “ the 
system. ’ * 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


29 


His end seemed to each young exile a personal ad- 
monition ; they had known him strong and spirited, 
and with them he had grown poor and unhappy. Pov- 
erty is a warning that talks like the wind, and we do 
not heed it ; but death raps at our door with bony 
knuckles, so that we grow pale and think. 

They shuddered, though they were hardened young 
men, so unfeeling, even after this reprimand, that they 
would have left the corpse of their companion to go un- 
honored to its grave ; separately they wished to do so 
— in community they were ashamed ; and Pisgah had 
half a hope that somebody would demur when he said, 
awkwardly : 

“ The Colony must attend the funeral, I suppose. 
God knows which of us will take the next turn.” 

Freckle cried out, however, that he should go, if he 
were to be buried alive in the same tomb, and on this 
occasion only he appeared in the light of an influential 
spirit. 

IV. 

THE DESPERATE CHANCE. 

During all this time Mr. Auburn Risque, packed 
away in the omnibus train, with a cheap cigar between 
his lips, and a face like a refrigerator, was scudding 
over the rolling provinces of France, thinking as little 
of the sunshine, and the harvesters of flax, and the 
turning leaves of the woods, and the chateaux overaw- 
ing the thatched little villages, as if the train were his 
mail-coach, and France were Arkansas, and he were 
lashing the rump of the “ off” horse, as he had done 
for the better part of his life. 


30 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


Risque’s uncle had been a great Mississippi jobber ; 
he took U. S. postal contracts for all the unknown 
world ; route of the first class, six horses and daily ; 
route of the second class, semi-weekly and four horses ; 
third class, two horses and weekly ; fourth class, one 
horse, one saddle, and one small boy. 

The young Auburn had been born in the stable, and 
had taken at once to the road. His uncle found it 
convenient to put him to work. He can never be 
faithfully said to have learned to walk ; and recalls, as 
the first incident of his life, a man who carried a baby 
and two bcwie knives, teaching him to play old 
sledge on the cushions of a Washita stage. 

Thenceforward he was a man of one idea. He held 
it to be one of the decrees, that he was to grow rich by 
gaming. As he went, by day or night, in rain or fog 
or burning sun, by the margins of turgid south-western 
rivers, where his “ leaders” shied at the alligators 
asleep in the stage-road ; through dreary pine woods, 
where the owls hooted at silence ; over red, reedy, 
slimy causeways ; in cane-breaks and bayous ; past 
villages where civilization looked westward with a dirk 
between its teeth, and cracked its horsewhip ; past rich 
plantations where the negroes sang afield, and the 
planter in the house-porch took off his hat to bow — 
here, there, always, everywhere, with his cold, hard, 
pock-marked face, thin lips and spotted eye, Auburn 
Risque sat brooding behind the reins, computing, cal- 
culating, overreaching, waiting for his destiny to 
wrestle with Chance and bind it down while its pockets 
were picked. 

His whole life might have been called a game of 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


3 * 


cards. He carried a deck forever next his heart. 
Sometimes he gambled with other vehicles — stocks, 
shares, currency — but the cards were still his mainstay, 
and he was well acquainted with every known or obso- 
lete game. There was no trick, nor fraud, nor waggery 
which he had not at his fingers-ends. 

It was his favorite theory that there was method in 
what seemed chance ; principles underlying luck ; 
measures for infinity ; clues to all combinations. 

Given one pack of cards, one man to shuffle, one to 
cut, one to deal, and fair play, and it was yet possible 
to know just how many times in a given number of 
games each card would fall to each man. 

Given a roulette circle of one hundred numbered 
spaces and a blindfolded man to spin the ball ; it could 
be counted just how many times in one thousand said 
ball would come to rest upon any one number. 

No searcher for perpetual motion, no blind believer 
in alchemy, clung to his one idea closer than Auburn 
Risque. He had shut all themes, affections, interests, 
from his mind. He neither loved nor hated any living 
being. He was penurious in his expenditures — never 
in his wagers. He would stake upon anything in 
nature — a trot, an election, a battle, a murder. 

“ Will you play picquet for one sou the game, one 
hundred and fifty points ?” says a soldier near by. 

He accepts at once ; the afternoon passes to night, 
and the lamps in the roof are lighted. The cards 
flicker upon the seat ; the boors gather round to watch ; 
they pass the French frontier, and see from their win- 
dows the forges of Belgium, throwing fire upon the 
river Meuse. Still, hour after hour, though their eyes 


32 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


are weary, and all the folks are gone or sleeping, the 
cards fall, fall, fall, till there comes a jar and a stop, 
and the guard cries, “ Cologne !” 

“You have won,” says the soldier, laying down his 
money. “ Good-night. ” 

The Rhine is a fine stream, though our German 
friends will build mock-castles upon it, and insist that 
it is the only real river in the world. 

Auburn Risque pays no more regard to it than 
though he were treading the cedars and sands of New 
Jersey or North Carolina. He speaks with a Franco- 
Russian, who has lost in play ten thousand francs a 
month for three successive years, and while they dis- 
cuss chances, expedients and experiences, the Siebern- 
gebierge drifts by, they pass St. Goar and Bingen, and 
the wonderful Rhine has been only a time, nothing of 
a scene, as they stop abreast Biberich, and, rowed 
ashore in a flagboat, make at once for the railway. 

At noon, on the third day, Mr. Risque having en- 
gaged a frugal bed at a little distance from Wisbaden, 
enters the grand saloon of the Kursaal, and turning to 
the right, sees before him a perspective, to which not 
all the marvels of art or nature afford comparison : a 
snug little room, with a table of green baize in the 
centre of the floor, and about the table sundry folks 
of various ages and degrees, before each a heap of 
glittering coins, and in the midst of all a something 
which moves forever, with a hurtle and a hum — the 
roulette. 

Mark them ! the weak, the profligate, the daring. 
There is old age, watching the play, with its voice 
like a baby’s cry ; and the paper whereon it keeps 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


33 


tremulous tally swimming upon eyes of perpetual twi- 
light. 

The boy ventures his first gold piece with the resolve 
that, win or lose, he will stake no more. He wins, 
and lies. At his side stands beautiful Sin, forgetting 
its guilt and coquetry for its avarice. The pale de- 
faulter from over the sea hazards like one whose treas- 
ure is a burden upon his neck, and the roue — blank, 
emotionless, remorseless — doubling at every loss, walks 
penniless away to dinner with a better appetite than he 
who saves a nation or dies for a truth. 

The daintily dressed coupeurs are in their chairs, 
eyeless, but omniscient ; the ball goes heedlessly, 
slaying or anointing where it stays, and the gold as it 
is raked up clinks and glistens, as if it struck men’s 
hearts and found them as hard and sounding. 

Mr. Risque advanced to the end of the table, and 
stood motionless a little while, drinking it all into his 
passionless eyes, which, like sponges, absorbed what- 
ever they saw, but nothing revealed. At last his right 
hand dropped softly to his vest pocket, as though it 
had some interest in deceiving his left hand. 

Apparently unconscious of the act, the right hand 
next slid over the table edge, and silently deposited a 
five-franc piece upon the black compartment. 

“ Whiz-z-z-z” started the ball from the fingers of the 
coupeurs — “ click” dropped the ball into a black de- 
partment of the board ; “ clink ! tingle !” cried the 
money, changing hands ; but not a word said Auburn 
Risque, standing like a stalagmite with his eyes upon 
ten francs. 

“ Whiz-z-z !” — “ click !” “ click !” “ tingle !” 


34 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


Did he see the fifteen francs at all, half trance- 
like, half corpse-like, as he stood, waiting for the 
third revolution, and waiting again, and again, and 
again ? 

His five francs have grown to be a hundred ; his 
cold hand falls freezingly upon them ; five francs re- 
place the hundred he took away — “ Whizz !” goes the 
ball ; “ click !” stops the ball ; the coupeur seizes Mr. 
Risque’s five francs, and Mr. Risque walks away like 
a somnambulist. 


V. 

BURIED IN THE COMMON DITCH. 

It would have been a strange scene for an Ameri- 
can public, the street corridor of the lofty house near 
the church of Saint Sulpice, on the funeral after- 
noon. 

The coffin lay upon a draped table, and festoons of 
crape threw phantom shadows upon the soiled velvet 
covering. Each passing pedestrian and cabman took 
off his hat a moment. The Southern Colony were in 
the landlady’s bureau enjoying a lunch and liquor, and 
precisely at three o’clock they came down stairs, not 
more dilapidated than usual, while at the same moment 
the municipal hearse drove up, attended by one cocker 
and two croquemorts * 

The hearse was a cheap charity affair, furnished by 
the Maire of the arrondissement, though it was sprucely 
painted and decked with funeral cloth. The driver 
wore a huge black chapeau, a white cotton cravat, 
* Literally, “parasites of death.” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


35 


and thigh-boots, which, standing up stiffly as he sat, 
seemed to engulf him to the ears. 

When the croquemorts , in a business way, lifted the 
velvet from the coffin, it was seen to be constructed of 
strips of deal merely, unpainted, and not thicker than 
a Malaga raisin box. 

There was some fear that it would fall apart of its 
own fragility, but the chief croquemort explained polite- 
ly that such accidents never happened. 

“ We have entombed four of them to-day,” he said ; 
” see how nicely we shall lift the fifth one.” 

There was, indeed, a certain sleight whereby he 
slung it across his shoulder, but no reason in the world 
for tossing it upon the hearse with a slam. They cov- 
ered its nakedness with velvet, and the cocher , having 
taken a cigar from his pocket, and looking much as if 
he would like to smoke, put it back again sadly, 
cracked his whip, and the cortege went on. The 
croquemorts kept a little way ahead, sauntering upon 
the sidewalk, and their cloaks and oil-cloth hats pro- 
tected them from a drizzling rain, which now came 
down, to the grief of the mourners, walking in the 
middle of the street behind the body. They were seven 
in number, Messrs. Plade, Pisgah and Simp, going to- 
gether, and apparently a trifle the worse for the lunch ; 
Freckle followed singly, having been told to keep at a 
distance to render the display more imposing ; the 
landlady and her niece went arm in arm after, and be- 
hind them trode a little old hunchback gentleman, neatly 
clothed, and bearing in his hand a black, wooden cross, 
considerably higher than himself, on which was paint- 
ed, in white letters, this inscription : 


3 6 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


CHRISTOPHER LEES, 

CAROLINA DU NORD, 

ETATS CONFEDERE 
AMERIQUE. 

AGE YINGT-QUATRE. 

A wreath of yellow immortelles, tied to the cross- 
piece, was interwoven with these spangled letters : 

“ r-e-g-r-e-t-s 

and the solemn air of the old man seemed to evidence 
that they were not meaningless. 

The hunchback was Lees’ principal creditor. He 
kept a small restaurant, where the deceased had been 
supplied for two years, and his books showed indebted- 
ness of twenty-eight hundred francs, not a sou of which 
he should ever receive. He could ill afford to lose 
the money, and had known, indeed, that he should 
never be paid, a year previous to the demise. But the 
friendlessness of the stranger had touched his heart* 
Twice every day he sent up a basket of food, which 
was always returned empty, and every Sunday climbed 
the long stairway with a bottle of the best wine — but 
never once said, “ Pay my bill.” 

Here he was at the last chapter of exile, still bearing 
his creditor’s cross. 

“Give the young man’s friends a lunch,” he had 
said to the landlady : “ I will make it right ;’’ — and in 
the cortege he was probably the only honest mourner. 

Not we, who know Frenchmen by caricature merely, 
as volatile, fickle, deceitful, full of artifice, should sit 
in judgment upon them. He has the least heart of all 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


37 


who thinks that there is not some heart everywhere ! 
The charity which tarrieth long and suffereth much 
wrong, has been that of the Parisians of the Latin 
Quarter, during the American war. 

Along all the route the folks lifted their hats as the 
hearse passed by, and so, through slush and mist and 
rain, the little company kept straight toward the bar- 
riers, and turned at last into the great gate of the 
cemetery of Mt. Parnasse. 

They do not deck the cities of the dead abroad as 
our great sepulchres are adorned. 

Pere la Chaise is famed rather for itr inmates than 
its tombs, and Mont Parnasse and Monte Martre, the 
remaining places of interment, are even forbidding to 
the mind and the eye. 

A gate-keeper, in semi-military dress, sounded a 
loud bell as the hearse rolled over the curb, and when 
they had taken an aisle to the left, with maple trees on 
either side, and vistas of mean-looking vaults, a corpu- 
lent priest, wearing a cape and a white apron, and at- 
tended by a civil assistant of most villainous physiogno- 
my, met the cortege and escorted it to its destination. 

This was the fosse commune — in plain English, the 
common trench — an open lot adjacent to the cemetery, 
appropriated to bodies interred at public expense, and 
presenting to the eye a spectacle which, considered 
either with regard to its quaintness or its dreariness, 
stood alone and unrivalled. 

Nearest the street the ground had long been occu- 
pied, trench parallel with trench, filled to the surface 
level, sodded green, and each grave marked by a 
wooden cross. There was a double layer of bodies 


38 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


beneath, lying side by side ; no margin could of course 
be given at the surface ; the thickly planted crosses, 
therefore, looked, at a little distance, like a great waste 
of heath or bramble, broken now and then by a dwarf 
cedar, and hung to the full with flowers and tokens. 
The width of the trenches was that of the added height 
of two full-grown men, and the length a half mile per- 
haps ; a narrow passage-way separated them, so that, 
however undistinguishable they appeared, each grave 
could be indentified and visited. 

Close observation might have found much to cheer 
this waste of flesh, this economy of space ; but to this 
little approaching company the scene was of a kind to 
make death more terrible by association. 

A rough wall enclosed the flat expanse of charnel, 
over which the scattered houses of the barriers looked 
widowed through their mournful windows ; and now 
and then a crippled crone, or a bereaved old pauper, 
hobbled to the roadway and shook her white hairs to 
the rain. 

It seemed a long way over the boggy soil to the 
newly opened trench, where the hearse stopped with its 
wheels half-sunken, and the chief croquemort, without 
any ado, threw the coffin over his shoulder and walked 
to the place of sepulture. Five fossoyeurs , at the re- 
mote end of the trench, were digging and covering, as 
if their number rather than their work needed increase, 
and a soldier in blue overcoat, whose hands were full 
of papers, came up at a commercial pace, and cried : 

“ Corps trente-deux T ’ 

Which corresponded to the figures on the box, and 
to the number of interments for the day. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


39 


The delvers made no pause while the priest read the 
service, and the clods fell faster than the rain. The 
box was nicely mortised against another previously de- 
posited, and as there remained an interstice between it 
and that at its feet, an infant’s coffin made the space 
complete. 

The Latin service was of all recitations the most 
slovenly and contemptuous ; the priest might have 
been either smiling or sleeping ; for his very red face 
appeared to have nothing in common with his scarcely 
moving lips ; and the assistant looked straight at the 
trench, half covetously, half vindictively, as if he meant 
to turn the body out of the box directly, and run away 
with the grave-clothes. It took but two minutes to run 
through the text ; the holy water was dashed from the 
hyssop ; and the priest, with a small shovel, threw a 
quantity of clods after it. “ Requiescat in pace!" he 
cried, like one just awakened, and now for the first 
time the grave-diggers ceased ; they wanted the cus- 
tomary fee, pour boire. 

The exiles never felt so destitute before ; not a sou 
could be found in the Colony. But the little hunch- 
back stepped up with the cross, and gave it to the chief 
fossoyeur , dropping a franc into his hand ; each of the 
women added some sous, and the younger one quietly 
tied a small round token of brass to the wood, which 
she kissed thrice ; it bore these words : 

* ‘ A mon ai?ii. * ’ 

“ A little more than kin and less than kind !” whis- 
pered Andy Plade, who knew what such souvenirs 
meant, in Paris. 

The Colony went away disconsolate ; but the little 


40 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


hunchback stopped on the margin, and looked once 
more into the pit where the box was fast disappear- 
ing. 

“ Pardon our debts, bon Dieu /” he said, “as we 
pardon our debtors.” 

Shall we who have followed this funeral be kind 
to the stranger that is within our gates ? The quiet old 
gentleman standing so gravely over the fosse commune 
might have attracted more regard from the angels than 
that Iron Duke who once looked down upon the sar 
cophagus of his enemy in the Hotel des Invalides. 

And so Lees was at rest — the master’s only son, the 
heir to lands and houses, and servants, and hopes. He 
had escaped the bullet, but also that honor which a 
soldier’s death conferred — and thus, abroad and neg- 
lected, had existed awhile upon the charity of 
strangers, to expire of his own wickedness, and accept, 
as a boon, this place among the bones of the wretched. 

How beat the hearts which wait for the strife to be 
done and for him to return ! The field-hands sleep 
more honored in their separate mounds beneath the 
pine trees. The landlady’s daughter may come some- 
times to fasten a flower upon his cross ; but, like that 
cross, her sorrow will decay, and Master Lees will 
mingle with common dust, passing out of the memory 
of Europe — ay ! even of the Southern Colony. 

How bowed and wounded they threaded the way 
homeward, those young men, whom the world, in its 
bated breath, had called rich and fortunate ! Now 
that they thought it over, how absurd had been this 
gambling venture ! They should lose every sou. They 
had, for a blind chance, exhausted the patience of their 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


4i 


creditors, and made away with their last collateral — ■ 
their last crust, and bed, and drink. 

“ I wish,” said Simp, bitterly, “ that I had been 
bom one of my mother’s niggers. Bigad ! a cabin, a 
wood fire, corn meal and a pound of pork per diem, 
would keep me like a duke next winter.” 

Here they stopped at Simp’s hotel, and, as he was 
afraid to enter alone, the loss of his baggage being de- 
tected, the Colony consented to ascend to his chamber. 

“ Monsieur Simp,” said the fierce concierge, “ here 
is a letter, the last which I shall ever receive for you ! 
You will please pay my bill to-night, or I shall go to 
the office of th z prnd' homme ; you are of the canaille , 
sir ! Where are your effects ?” 

“ Whoop !” yelled Mr. Simp, in the landlady’s face. 
“ Yah-ah-ah ! hoora ah-ah ! three cheers ! we have 
news of our venture ! This is a telegram !” 

‘‘Wisbaden, Oct. 30. 

“ The system wins ! To-day and yesterday I took 
seven thousand one hundred francs. I have selected 
the 4th of November to break the bank. 

” Auburn Risque.” 


VI. 

THE OLD REVELRY REVIVED. 

The Colony would have shouted over Master Lees’ 
coffin at the receipt of such intelligence. They gave a 
genuine American cheer, nine times repeated, with the 
celebrated “ tiger” of the Texan Rangers, as it had 
been reported to them. Mr. Simp read the dispatch 


42 


THE REBEL COLONY LN PARLS. 


to the concierge, who brightened up, begged his par- 
don, and hoped that he would forget words said in 
anger. 

“ Madam,” said Mr. Simp, with some dignity, “ I 
have suffered and forgotten much in this establishment • 
we have an aphorism, relative to the last feather, in 
the English tongue. But lend me one hundred francs 
till my instalment arrives from Germany, and I will 
forgive even the present insult.” 

“ Boys !” cried Andy Plade, “ let us have a supper ! 
We — that is, you — can take the telegram to our several 
creditors, and raise enough upon it to pass a regal 
night at the Trois Freres .” 

This proposition was received with great favor ; the 
concierge gave Simp a hundred francs ; he ordered 
cigars and a gallon of punch, and they repaired to his 
room to arrange the details of the celebration. 

Freckle gave great offence by wishing that “ Poor 
Lees” were alive to enjoy himself ; and Simp said, 
“ Bigad, sir ! Freckle, living, is more of a bore than 
Lees, dead.” 

They resolved to attend supper in their dilapidated 
clothes, so that what they had been might be pleasant- 
ly rebuked by what they were. “ And but for this fea- 
ture,” said Andy Plade, *‘ it would have been well to 
invite Ambassador Slidell.” But Pisgah and Simp, 
who had applied to Slidell several times by letter for 
temporary loans, were averse, just now, to the presence 
of one who had forgotten ‘‘the first requisite of a 
Southern Gentleman — generosity. ’ ’ 

So it was settled that only the Colony and Hugenot 
were to come, each man to bring one lady. Simp, 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


43 


Pisgah, and Freckle thought Hugenot a villain. He 
had not even attended the obsequies of the lamented 
Lees. But Andy Plade forcibly urged that Hugenot 
was a good speaker, and would be needed for a senti- 
ment. 

In the evening a lunch was served by Mr. Simp, of 
which some young ladies of the Paris de?ni~monde par- 
took ; the “ Bonnie Blue Flag” was sung with great 
spirit, and Freckle became so intoxicated at two in the 
morning that one of the young ladies was prevailed 
upon to see him to his hotel. 

There was great joy in the Latin Quarter when it 
was known that the Southern Colony had won at Wis- 
baden, and meant to pay its debts. The tailors, shoe- 
makers, tobacconists, publicans, grocers and hosiers 
met in squads upon corners to talk it over ; all the 
gentlemen obtained loans, and, as evidence of how 
liberal they meant to be, commenced by giving away 
whatever old effects they had. 

A cabinet or small saloon of the most expensive res- 
taurant in Paris was pleasantly adorned for the first 
reunion of the Confederate exiles. 

The ancient seven-starred flag, entwined with the 
new battle-flag, hung in festoons at the head of the 
room, and directly beneath was the portrait of Presi- 
dent Davis. A crayon drawing of the C. S. N. V. 
Florida, from the portfolio of the amateur Mr. Simp, 
was arched by two crossed cutlasses, hired for the oc- 
casion ; and upon an enormous iced cake, in the centre 
of the table, stood a barefooted soldier, with his back 
against a pine tree, defying both a Yankee and a negro. 

At eleven o’clock p.m. the scrupulously dressed at- 


44 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


tendants heard a buzz and a hurried tramp upon the 
stairs. They repaired at once to their respective 
places, and after a pause the Southern Colony and 
convoy made their appearance upon the threshold. 
With the exception of Pisgah and Hugenot, all were 
clothed in the relics of their poverty, but their hairs 
were curled, and they wore some recovered articles of 
jewelry. They had thus the guise of a colony of bar- 
bers coming up from the gold diggings, full of nuggets 
and old clothes. 

By previous arrangement, the chair was taken by 
Andy Plade, supported by two young ladies, and, after 
saying a welcome to the guests in elegant French, he 
made a significant gesture to the chief waiter. The 
most luscious Ostend oysters were at once introduced ; 
they lifted them with bright silver fourchettes from 
plates of Sevres porcelain, and each guest touched his 
lips afterward with a glass of refined vermeuth. Three 
descriptions of soup came successively, an amber 
Julien, in which the microscope would have been 
baffled to detect one vegetable fibre, yet it bore all the 
flavors of the garden.; a tureen of potage a la Bisque , 
in which the rarest and tiniest shell-fish had dissolved 
themselves ; and at the last a tortue , small in quantity, 
but so delicious that murmurs of “ encore ” were made. 

Morsels of viande , so alternated that the appetite was 
prolonged — each dish seeming a better variation of the 
preceding — were helped toward digestion by the finest 
vintages of Burgundy ; and the luscious pates de foie 
gras — for which the plumpest geese in Bretagne had 
been invalids all their days, and, if gossip be true, 
submitted in the end to a slow roasting alive — intro- 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


45 


duced the fish, which, by the then reformed Parisian 
mode, must appear after, not before, the entrle. 

A sole au vin blanc gave way to a regal mackerel au 
sauce champignon , and after this dish came confections 
and fruits ad libitum , ending with the removal of the 
cloth, the introduction of cigars, and a marquise or 
punch of pure champagne. 

It was a pleasant evening within and without ; the 
windows were raised, and they could see the people in 
the gardens strolling beneath the lime trees ; the star- 
light falling on the plashing fountain and the gray, 
motionless statues ; the pearly light of the lines of 
lamps, shining down the long arcades ; the glitter of 
jewelry and precious merchandise in the marvellous 
boutiques j the groups which sat around the cafe be- 
neath with sorbets and glaces , and sparkling wines ; 
the old women in Normandie caps and green aprons, 
who flitted here and there to take the hire of chairs, 
and break the hum of couples, talking profane and 
sacred love ; around and above all, the Cardinal’s 
grand palace lifting its multitudinous pilasters, and 
seeming to prop up the sky. 

It was Mr. Simp and his lady who saw these more 
particularly, as they had withdrawn from the table, to 
exchange a memory and a sentiment, and Hugenot had 
joined them with his most recent mistress ; for the lat- 
ter was particularly unfortunate in love, being cozened 
out of much money, and yet libelled for his closeness. 

All the rest sat at the table, talking over the splen- 
dor of the supper, and proposing to hold a second one 
at the famous Philippe’s, in the Rue Montorgueil. 
But Mr. Freckle, being again emboldened by wine, 


4 6 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


and affronted at the subordinate position assigned him, 
repeatedly cried that, for his part, he preferred the 
“old Latin Quarter,” and challenged the chairman 
to produce a finer repast than Magny’s in the Rue 
Counterscarp. 

Pisgah, newly clothed cap-a-pie , was drinking 
absinthe, and with his absent eyes, worn face and 
changing hairs, looked like the spectre of his former 
self. Now and then he raised his head to give uncon- 
scious assent to something, but immediately relapsed 
to the worship of his nepenthe ; and, as the long pota- 
tions sent strong fumes to his temples, he chuckled 
audibly, and gathered his jaws to his eyes in a vacant 
grin. The gross, coarse woman at his side, from 
whom the other females shrank with frequent demon- 
strations of contempt, was Pisgah ’s blanchisseuse. 

He was in her debt, and paid her with compli- 
ments ; she is old and uninviting, and he owes her 
eight hundred francs. Hers are the new garments 
which he wears to-night. Few knew how many weary 
hours she labored for them in the floating houses upon 
the Seine. But she is in love with Pisgah, and is 
quite oblivious of the general regard ; for, strange to 
such grand occasions, she has both eaten and imbibed 
enormously, and it may be even doubted at present 
whether she sees anything at all. 

She strokes his cloth coat with her red, swollen 
hands, and proposes now and then that he shall visit 
the wardrobe to look after his new hat ; but Pisgah 
only passes his arm about her, and drains his absinthe, 
and sometimes, as if to reassure the company, shouts 
wildly at the wrong places: “ ’At’s so, boys!” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


47 


“ Hoorah for you !” “ Ay ! capital, genTmen, capi- 

tal V And h is partner, conscious that something has 
happened, laughs to her waist, and leans forward, quite 
overcome, as if she beheld something mirthful over her 
washboard. 

The place was now quite dreamy with tobacco- 
smoke ; Freckle was riotously sick at the window, and 
Andy Plade, who had been borrowing small sums from 
everybody who would lend, struck the table with a 
corkscrew, and called for order. 

“ Drire rup !” cried Mr. Freckle, looking very at- 
tentively, but seeing nothing. 

“ I have the honor to state, gentlemen of the Colony, 
that we have with us to-night an eloquent representa- 
tive of our country — one whose business energy and 
enterprise have been useful both to his own fortunes 
and to the South — one who is a friend of yours, and 
more than a dear friend to me. We came from the 
same old Palmetto State, the first and the last ditch of 
our revolution. I give you a toast, gentlemen, to 
which Mr. Hugenot will respond : 

“ ‘ The Mother Country and the Colony — good luck 
to both V ” 

“ Hoorah for you !” cried Pisgah, looking the wrong 
way. 

The glasses rattled an instant, amid iterations of 
“ Hear ! hear !” and Mr. Hugenot, rising, as it ap- 
peared from a bandbox, carefully surveyed himself in 
a mirror opposite, and touched his nose with a small 
nosegay. 

“ I feel, my friends, rather as your host than your 
guest to-night — ” 


48 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


(“ It isn’t yesternight” — from Freckle — “ it’s to- 
morroer night.”) 

“ For I, gentlemen, stand upon my hereditary, if 
not my native heath ; and you are, at most, French- 
men by adoption. That ancestry whose deeds will 
live when the present poor representative of its name 
is departed drew from this martial land its blood and 
genius.” 

(Loud cries of “ Gammon” from Freckle, and dis- 
approbation from Simp.) 

“ From the past to the present, my friends, is a 
short transition. I found you in Paris a month ago, 
poor and dejected. You are here to-night, with that 
luxury which was your heritage. And how has it been 
restored ?” 

(“ ’At’s so !” earnestly, from Pisgah.) 

“ By hard, grovelling work ? Never ! No contact 
with vulgar clay has soiled these aristocratic hands. 
The cavalier cannot be a mudsill ! You are not like 
the lilies of the field ; they toil not, neither do they 
spin. You have not toiled, gentlemen, but you have 
spun !” 

(Great awakening, doubt, and bewilderment.) 

“You have spun the roulette ball, and you have 
won !” 

(Ferocious and unparalleled cheering.) 

“ And it has occurred to me, my friends, that ou-ah 
cause, in the present tremendous struggle, has been 
well symbolized by these, its foreign representatives. 
Calamity came upon the South, as upon you. It had 
indebtedness, as you have had. Shall I say that you, 
like the South, repudiated ? No ! that is a slander of 


THE REBEL COLONY LN PARIS. 


49 


our adversaries. But the parallel holds good in that 
we found ourselves abandoned by the world. Nations 
abroad gave us no sympathy ; our neighbors at home 
laughed at our affliction. They would wrest from us 
that bulwark of our liberties, the African.” 

“ Capital, gentlemen, capital !” from Pisgah. 

“ They demanded that we should toil for ourselves. 
Did we do so ? Never ! We appealed to the chances, 
as you have done ; we would fight the Yankee, but we 
would not work. You would fight the bank, but you 
would not slave ; and as you have won at Wisbaden, 
so have we, in a thousand glorious contests. Fill, 
then, gentlemen, to the toast which your chairman has 
announced : 

4 4 4 The Mother Country and the Colony — good luck 
to both !’ ” 

The applause which ensued was of such a nature 
that the proprietors below endeavored to hasten the 
conclusion of the dinner by sending up the bill. Pis- 
gah and the blanchisseuse were embracing in a spirited 
way, and Simp was holding back Freckle, who — per- 
suaded that Hugenot’s remarks were in some way 
derogatory to himself — wished to toss down his gauntlet. 

“ The next toast, gentlemen of the Colony,” said 
Andy Plade, 44 is to be dispatched immediately by the 
waiter, whom you see upon my right hand, to the office 
of the telegraph ; thence to Mr. Risque at Wisbaden : 

“ 4 The Southern exiles ; doubtless the most imme- 
tliodical men alive ; but the results prove they have the 
best system : no Risque, no winnings.’ 

“You will see, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Plade, 
when the enthusiasm had subsided, ” that I place the 


5o 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


toast in this envelope. It will go in two minutes to 
Mr. Auburn Risque !” 

The waiter started for the door ; it was dashed open 
in his face, and splattered, dirty, and travel-worn, Au- 
burn Risque himself stood like an apparition on the 
threshold. 

“ Perdition !” thundered Plade, staggered and pale- 
faced ; “ you were not to break the bank till to-mor- 
row.” 

The Colony, sober or inebriate, clustered about the 
door, and held to each other that they might hear the 
explanation aright. 

Auburn Risque straightened himself and glared upon 
all the besiegers, till his pock-marked face grew white 
as leprosy, and every spot in his secretive eye faded 
out in the glitter of his defiance. 

“ To-morrow?” he said, in a voice hard, passion- 
less, inflectionless ; “ how could one break the bank 
to morrow, when all his money was gone yesterday ?’ ’ 

“ Gone !” repeated the Colony, in a breath rather 
than a voice, and reeling as if a galvanic current had 
passed through the circle— “ Gone !” 

“ Every sou,” said Risque, sinking into a chair. 
” The bank gave me one hundred francs to return to 
Paris ; I risked twenty-five of it, hopeful of better 
luck, and lost again. Then I had not enough money 
to get home, and for forty kilometres of the way I have 
driven a charette. See !” he cried, throwing open his 
coat ; “ I sold my vest at Compiegne last night, for a 
morsel of supper.” 

” But you had won seven thousand one hundred 
francs !” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


5 1 


“ I won more — more than eighteen thousand francs ; 
but, enlarging my stakes with my capital, one hour 
brought me down to a sou.” 

‘‘The ‘system’ was a swindle,” hissed Mr. Simp, 
looking up through red eyes which throbbed like pulses. 
“ What right had you to plunder us upon your specu- 
lation ?” 

‘‘The ‘system’ could not fail,” answered the 
gamester, at bay ; “it must have been my manner of 
play. I think that, upon one run of luck, I gave up 
my method.” 

‘‘ We do not know,” cried Simp, tossing his hands 
wildly ; “ we may not accuse, we may not be enraged 
— we are nothing now but profligates without means, 
and beggars without hope !” 

They sobbed together, bitterly and brokenly, till 
Freckle, not entirely sober, shouted, ‘‘ Good God, is it 
that gammon-head, Hugenot, who has ruined us ? Fetch 
him out from his ancestry ; let me see him, I say ! 
Where is the man who took my three hundred f rancs !” 

‘‘I wish,” said Simp, in a suicidal way, ‘‘ that I 
were lying by Lees in the fosse com?nune. But I will 
not slave ; the world owes every man a living !” 

‘‘ Ay !” echoed the rest, as desperately, but less res- 
olutely. 

‘‘ This noise,” said one of the waiters politely, 
“ cannot be continued. It is at any rate time for the 
salon to be closed. We will thank you to pay your bill, 
and settle your quarrels in the garden.” 

‘‘Here is the account,” interpolated Andy Plade, 
“ dinner for thirteen persons, nineteen hundred and 
fifty francs,” 


5 2 


THE REBEL COLONY LN PARIS. 


“ Manes of my ancestry !” shrieked Hugenot, over- 
turning the blanchisseuse in his way, and rushing from 
the house. 

“ We have not the money !” cried the whole Colony 
in chorus ; and, as if by concert, the company in 
mass, male and female, cleared the threshold and dis- 
appeared, headed by Andy Plade, who kept all the sub- 
scriptions in his pockets, and terminated by Freckle, 
who was caught at the base of the stairs and held for 
security. 

VII. 

THE COLONY DISBANDED. 

The Colony, as a body, will appear no more in this 
transcript. The greatness of their misfortune kept 
them asunder. They closed their chamber-doors, and 
waited in hunger and sorrow for the moment when the 
sky should be their shelter and beggary their craft*. 

It was in this hour of ruin that the genius of Mr. 
Auburn Risque was manifest. The horse is always 
sure of a proprietor, and with horses Mr. Risque was 
more at home than with men. 

“ Man is ungrateful,” soliloquized Risque, keeping 
along the Rue Mouffetard in the Chiffoniers’ Quarter ; 
“ a horse is invariably faithful, unless he happens to 
be a mule. Confound men ! the only excellence they 
have is not a virtue — they can play cards !” 

Here he turned to the left, followed some narrow 
thoroughfares, and stopped at the great horse market, 
a scene familiarized to Americans, in its general fea- 
tures, by Rosa Bonheur’s “ La Foire du Chevaux.” 

Double rows of stalls enclosed a trotting course, 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


53 


roughly paved, and there was an artificial hill on one 
side, where draught-horses were tested. The animals 
were gayly caparisoned, whisks of straw affixed to the 
tails indicating those for sale ; their manes and fore- 
locks were plaited, ribbons streamed over their front- 
lets, they were muzzled and wore wooden bits. 

We have no kindred exhibition in the States, so pic- 
turesque and so animated. Boors in blouses were gal- 
loping the great -hoofed beasts down the course by fours 
and sixes ; the ribbons and manes fluttered ; the whips 
cracked, and the owners hallooed in patois. 

Four fifths of French horses are gray ; here, there was 
scarcely one exception ; and the rule extended to the 
asses which moved amid hundreds of braying mulets, 
while at the farther end of the ground the teams were 
parked, and, near by, seller and buyer, book in hand, 
were chaffering and smoking in shrewd good-humor. 

One man was collecting animals for a celebrated stage- 
route, and the gamester saw that he was a novice. 

“Do you choose that for a good horse?” spoke 
up Risque, in his practical way, when the man had set 
aside a fine, sinewy draught stallion. 

“ I do !” said the man, shortly. 

“ Then you have no eye. He has a bad strain. I 
can lift all his feet but this one. See ! he kicks if I 
touch it. Walk him now, and you will remark that it 
tells on his pace.” 

The man was convinced and pleased. “You are a 
judge,” he said, glancing down Risque’s dilapidated 
dress ; “I will make it worth something to you to re- 
main here during the day and assist me.” 

The imperturbable gamester became a feature of the 


54 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


sale. He was the best rider on the ground. He put 
his hard, freckled hand into the jaws of stallions, and 
cowed the wickedest mule with his spotted eye. He 
knew prices as well as values, and had, withal, a dash- 
ing way of bargaining, which baffled the traders and 
amused his patron. 

“ You have saved me much money and many 
mistakes,” said the latter, at nightfall. “ Who are 
you?” 

” I am the man,” answered Risque, straightforward- 
ly, “ to work on your stage-line, and I am dead broke.” 

The man invited Risque to dinner ; they rode to- 
gether on the Champs Elysees ; and next morning at 
daylight the gamester left Paris without a thought or a 
farewell for the Colony. 

It was in the Grand Hotel that Messrs. Hugenot 
and Plade met by chance the evening succeeding the 
dinner. 

“ I shall leave Paris, Andy,” said Hugenot, regard- 
ing his pumps through his eye-glass. “ My ancestry 
would blush in thejr cofflns if they knew ou-ah cause 
to be represented by such individuals as those of last 
evening.” 

“ Let us go together, ” replied Plade, in his plausible 
way ; “ you cannot speak a word of any continental 
language. Take me along as courier and companion ; 
pay my travelling expenses, and I will pay my own 
board.” 

” Can I trust you, Suth Kurlinian ?” said Hugenot, 
irresolutely ; “ you had no money yesterday.” 

‘‘ But I have a plan of raising a thousand francs to- 
day. What say you ?” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


55 


“ My family have been wont to see the evidence prior 
to committing themselves. First show me the specie.” 

Voila /” cried Plade, counting out forty louis ; 
“ the day after to-morrow I guarantee to own eighteen 
hundred francs.” 

It did not occur to Mr. Hugenot to inquire how his 
friend came to possess so much money ; for Hugenot 
was not a clever man, and somewhat in dread of Andy 
Plade, who, as his school-mate, had thrashed him re- 
peatedly, and even now that one had grown rich and the 
other was a vagabond, the latter’s strong will and keen, 
bad intelligence made him the master man. 

Hugenot’s good fortune was accidental ; his cargoes 
had passed the blockade and given handsome returns ; 
but he shared none of the dangers, and the traffic re- 
quired no particular skill. Hugenot was, briefly, a 
favorite of circumstances. The war-wind, which had 
toppled down many a long, thoughtful head, carried 
this inflated person to greatness. 

They are well contrasted, now that they speak. The 
merchant, elaborately dressed, varnished pumps upon 
his effeminate feet, every hair taught its curve and 
direction, the lunette perched upon no nose to speak 
of, and the wavering, vacillating eye, which has no 
higher regard than his own miniature figure. Above 
rises the vagabond, straight, athletic and courageous, 
though a knave. 

He is so much of a man physically and intellectu- 
ally, that we do not see his faded coat-collar, frayed 
cuffs, worn buttons, and untidy boots. He is so little 
of a man morally, that, to any observer who looks 
twice, the plausibility of the face will fail to deceive. 


56 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


The eye is deep and direct, but the high, jutting fore- 
head above is like a table of stone, bearing the ten 
broken commandments. He keeps the lips ajar in a 
smile, or shut in a resolve, to hide their sensuality, and 
the fine black beard conceals the massive contour of 
jaws which are cruel as hunger. 

It was strange that Plade, with his clear conception, 
should do less than despise his acquaintance. On the 
contrary, he was partial to Hugenot’s society. The 
world asked, wonderingly, what capacities had the 
latter ? Was he not obtuse, sounding, shallow ? Mr. 
Plade alone, of all the Americans in Paris, asserted 
from the first that Hugenot was far-sighted, close, ca- 
pable. Indeed, he was so earnest in this enunciation 
that few thought him disinterested. 

It was Master Simp who heard a bold step on the 
stairs that night, and a resolute knock upon his own 
door. 

“ Arrest for debt !” cried Mr. Simp, falling tearfully 
upon his bed ; “ I have expected the summons all 
day.” 

“ The next man may come upon that errand,” an- 
swered the ringing voice of Andy Plade. ‘‘Freckle 
sleeps in Clichy to-night ; Risque cannot be found ; 
the rest are as badly off ; I have news for you.” 

“I am the man to be mocked,” pleaded Simp ; 
“ but you must laugh at your own joke ; I am too 
wretched to help you.” 

“ The Yankees have opened the Mississippi River ; 
Louisiana is subjugated, and communication re-estab- 
lished with your neighborhood ; you can go home.” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


57 


“ What fraction of the way will this carry me ?” said 
the other, holding up a five-franc piece. “ My home 
is farther than the stars from me.” 

“ It is a little sum,” urged Mr. Plade ; “ one hun- 
dred dollars should pay the whole passage.” 

Mr. Simp, in response, mimicked a man shovelling 
gold pieces, but was too weak to prolong the pleas- 
antry, and sat down on his empty trunk and wept, as 
Plade thought, like a calf. 

“ Your case seems indeed hopeless,” said the elder. 
“ Suppose I should borrow five hundred dollars on 
your credit, would you give me two hundred for my 
trouble ?” 

Mr. Simp said, bitterly, that he would give four hun- 
dred and ninety-five dollars for five ; but Plade pressed 
for a direct answer to his original proffer, and Simp 
cried ” Yes,” with an oath. 

“ Then listen to me ! there is no reason to doubt 
that your neighbors have made full crops for two years 
— cotton, sugar, tobacco. All this remains at home 
unsold and unshipped — yours with the rest. Take the 
oath of allegiance to the Yankee Government before its 
chargt des affaires in Paris. That will save your crops 
from confiscation, and be your passport to return. 
Then write to your former banker here, promising to 
consign your cotton to him, if he will advance five 
hundred dollars to take you to Louisiana. He knows 
you received of old ten thousand dollars per annum. 
He will risk so small a sum for a thing so plausible and 
profitable.” 

“ I don’t know what you have been saying,” mut- 
tered Simp. “ I cannot comprehend a scheme so in- 


5 » 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


tricate ; you bewilder me ! What is a consignment ? 
How am I, bigad ! to make that clear in a letter ? 
Perhaps my speech in the case of Rutledge vs. Pinck- 
ney might come in well at this juncture.” 

“ Write !” cried Plade, contemptuously ; “ write at 
my dictation.” 

That night the letter was mailed ; Mr. Simp was 
summoned to his banker’s the following noon, and at 
dusk he met Andy Plade in the Place Vendome, and 
paid over a thousand francs with a sigh. 

On the third night succeeding, Messrs. Plade and 
Hugenot were smoking their cigars at Nice, and Mr. 
Simp, without the least idea of what he meant to do, 
was drinking cocktails on the Atlantic Ocean. 

“ Francine,” said Pisgah, with a woful glance at the 
dregs of absinthe in the tumbler, ‘‘give me a half 
franc, my dear ; I am poorly to-day.” 

‘‘Monsieur Pisgah, ” answered Madame Francine, 
“ give me nine hundred and sixty-five francs, seventy- 
five centimes — that is your bill with me — and 1 am 
poorly also.” 

4 ‘ My love,” said Pisgah, rubbing his grizzled beard 
against the madame’s fat cheek, ‘‘ you' are not hard- 
hearted. You will pity the poor old exile. .1 love you 
very much, Francine.” 

“ Stand off !” cried the madame ; “ vous in' enibate ! 
You say you love me ; then marry me!” 

“ Nonsense, my angel !” 

“ I say marry me!” repeated the madame, stamping 
her foot. “ You are rich in America. You have slaves 
and land and houses and fine relatives. You will get 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


59 


all these when the war closes ; but if you die of starva- 
tion in Paris, they amount to nothing. Marry me ! 
1 will keep you alive here ; you will give me half of 
your possessions there ! I shall be a grand lady, ride 
in my carriage, and have a nasty black woman to wash 
my fine clothes.” 

“ That is impossible, Francine,” answered Pisgah, 
not so utterly degraded but he felt the stigma of such a 
proposition from his blanchisseuse — and as he leaned 
his faded hairs upon his unnerved and quivering hands, 
the old pride fluttered in his heart a moment and paint- 
ed rage upon his neck and temples. 

“ You are insulted, my lord count !” cried Madame 
Francine; “an alliance with a poor washerwoman 
would shame your great kin. Pay me my money, you 
beggar ! or I shall put the fine gentleman in prison for 
debt.” 

“ That would be a kindness to me, madame,” said 
Pisgah, very humbly and piteously. 

“ You are right,” she made answer, with a mocking 
laugh ; “ I will not save your life : you shall starve, 
sir ! you shall starve !” 

In truth, this consummation seemed very close, for 
as Pisgah entered his creamery soon afterward, the 
proprietor met him at the threshold. 

“Monsieur Pisgah,” he said, “you can have 
nothing to eat here, until you pay a part of your bill 
with me ; I am a poor man, sir, and have children.” 

Pisgah kept up the street with heavy forebodings, and 
turned into the place of a clothes-merchant, to whom 
his face had long been familiar. When he emerged, his 
handsome habits, the gift of Madame Francine, hung 


6o 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


in the clothes-dealer’s window, and Mr. Pisgah, wear- 
ing a common blouse, a cap, and coarse hide shoes, re- 
paired to the nearest wine-shop, and drank a dead 
man’s portion of absinthe at the zinc counter. Then 
he returned to his own hotel, but as he reached to the 
rack for his key, the landlady laid her hand upon it 
and shook her head. 

“ You are properly dressed, Monsieur Pisgah,” she 
said ; ” those who have no money should work ; you 
cannot sleep in twenty-six to night, sir ; I have shut 
up the chamber, and seized the little rubbish which 
you left.” 

Pisgah was homeless — a vagabond, an outcast. He 
walked unsteadily along the street in the pleasant even- 
ing, and the film of tears that shut the world from his 
eyes was peopled with far-off and familiar scenes. 

He saw his father’s wide acres, with the sunset gild- 
ing the fleeces of his sheep and crowning with fire the 
stacks of grain and the vanes upon his granges. Then 
the twilight fell, and the slaves went homeward singing, 
while the logs on the brass andirons lit up the windows 
of the mansion, and every negro cabin was luminous, 
so that in the night the homestead looked like a village. 
Then the moon rose above the woods, making the lawn 
frosty, and shining upon the long porch, where his 
mother came out to welcome him, attended by the two 
house-dogs, which barked so loudly in their glee that 
all the hen-coops were alarmed, and the peacocks in 
the trees held their tails to the stars and trilled. 

“ Come in, my son,” said the mother, looking 
proudly upon the tall, straight shape and glossy locks ; 
“ the supper is smoking upon the table ; here is your 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


6 1 


familiar julep, without which you have no appetite ; 
the Maryland biscuit are unusually good this evening, 
and there is the yellow pone in the corner, with Sukey, 
your old nurse, behind it. Do you like much cream 
in your coffee, as you used to ? Bless me ! the par- 
tridge is plump as a duck ; but here is your napkin, 
embroidered with your name ; let us ask a blessing be- 
fore we eat !” 

While all this is going on, the cat, which has been 
purring by the fire, takes a wicked notion to frighten 
the canary bird, but the high old clock in the corner, 
imported from England before the celebrated Revolu- 
tionary war, impresses the cat as a very formidable 
object with its stately stride-stride-stride — so that the 
cat regarding it a moment, forgets the canary bird, and 
mews for a small portion of cream in a saucer. 

“ Halloo ! halloo !” says the parrot, awakened by a 
leap of the fire ; for, the back-log has broken in half, 
and Pisgah sees, by the increased light, the very hair- 
powder gleam on the portrait of General Washington. 
But now the cloth is removed, and the old-fashioned 
table folds up its leaves ; they sip some remarkable 
sherry, which grandfather regards with a wheezy sort 
of laugh, and after they have played one game of 
draughts, Mr. Pisgah looks at his gold chronometer, 
and asks if he has still the great room above the porch 
and plenty of bedclothes. 

This is what Mr. Pisgah sees upon the film of his 
tears — wealth, happiness, manliness ! When he dashes 
the tears themselves to the pavement with an oath, 
what rises upon his eye and his heart ? Paris — grand, 
luxurious, pitiless, and he, at twilight, flung upon the 


62 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


world, with neither kindred nor country — a thing un- 
willing to live, unfit to die ! 

He strolled along the quay to the Morgue ; the 
beautiful water of St. Michel fell sibilantly cold from 
the fountain, and Apollyon above, at the feet of the 
avenging angel, seemed a sermon and an allegory of his 
own prostration. How all the folks upon the bridge 
were stony faced ! It had never before occurred to 
him that men were cold-blooded creatures. He won- 
dered if the Seine, dashing against the quays and piers 
beneath, were not their proper element ? Ay ! for 
here were three drowned people on the icy slabs of the 
Morgue, with half a hundred gazing wistfully at them, 
and their fixed eyes glaring fishily at the skylight, as if 
it were the surface of the river and they were at rest 
below. 

So seemed all the landscape as he kept down the 
quay — the lines of high houses were ridges only in the 
sea, and Notre Dame, lifting its towers and sculptured 
faqade before, was merely a high-decked ship, with 
sailors crowding astern. The holy apostles above the 
portal were more like human men than ever, with their 
silicious eyes and pulseless bosoms ; while the hideous 
gargoyles at the base of each crocheted pinnacle, seemed 
swimming in the dusky evening. 

It may have been that this aqueous phenomenon was 
natural to one “ half-seas over but not till he stood 
on the place of the Hotel de la Ville, did Pisgah have 
any consciousness whatever that he walked upon the 
solid world. 

At this moment he was reminded, also, that he held 
a letter in his hand, his landlady’s gift at parting ; it 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


63 


was dated, “ Clichy dungeon,” and signed by Mr. 
Freckle. 

“ Dear Pisgah,” read the text, “ I am here at claim 
of restaurateur ; shall die to-morrow at or before 
twelve o’clock, if Andy Plade don’t fork over my sub- 
scription of two hundred francs. Andy Plade damned 
knave — no mistake ! No living soul been to see me, 
except letter from Hon. Mr. Slidell. He has got six- 
teen thousand dollars in specie for Simp. Where’s 
Simp, dogorn him ! Hon. S. sent to Simp’s house ; 
understood he’d sailed for America. Requested Hon. 
S. to give me small part of money as Sirup’s next 
friend. Hon. S. declined. Population of prison very 
great. Damned scrub stock ! Don’t object to im- 
prisonment as much as the fleas. Fleas bent on aiding 
my escape. If they crawl with me to-morrow night as 
far again as last night I’ll be clear — no mistake ! Live 
on soup, chiefly. Abhor soup. Had forty francs here 
first day, but debtor with one boot and spectacles won 
it at picquet. Restaurateur says bound to keep me here 
a thousand years if I don’t sock — shall die — no mis- 
take ! Come see me, toute suite. Fetch pocket-comb, 
soap, and English Bible. 

“ Yours, in deep waters, Freckle.” 

“ The whole world is in deep waters,” said Pisgah, 
dismally. ” So much the better for them ; here goes 
for something stronger !” 

He repaired to the nearest drinking-saloon, and 
demanded a glass brimful of absinthe, at which all the 
garcons and patrons held up their hands while he drank 
it to the dregs. 


6 4 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


“ Sacristie !” cried a man with mouth wide open, 
“ that gentleman can drink clear laudanum.” 

“ I wish,” thought Pisgah, with a pale face, ” that 
it had been laudanum ; I should have been dead by 
this time and all over. Why don’t I get the delirium 
tremens ? I should like to be crazy. Oh, ho, ho„ ho !” 
he continued, laughing wildly, ” to be in a hospital — 
nurses, soft bed, good food, pity — oh, ho ! that would 
be a fate fit for an emperor.” 

Here his eye caught something across the way which 
riveted it, and he took half a step forward, exultingly. 
A great caserne , or barrack, adjoined the Hotel de Ville, 
and twice every day, after breakfast and dinner, the 
soldiers within distributed the surplus of their rations 
to mendicants without. The latter were already as- 
sembling — laborers in neat, common clothing, with 
idlers and profligates not more forbidding, while a sol- 
dier on guard directed them where to rest and in what 
order or number to enter the building. Pisgah halted 
a moment with his heart in his throat. But he was very 
hungry, and his silver was half gone already ; if he 
purchased a dinner, he might not be left with sufficient 
to obtain a bed for the night. 

“ Great God !” he said aloud, lifting his clenched 
hands and swollen eyes to the stars, “ am I, then, among 
the very dogs, that I should beg the crumbs of a com- 
mon soldier ?” 

He took his place in the line, and when at length 
his turn was announced, followed the rabble shame- 
facedly. The chasseurs in the mess-room were making 
merry after dinner with pipes and cards, and one of 
these, giving Pisgah a piece of bread and a tin basin of 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


65 


strong soup, slapped him smartly upon the shoulder, 
and cried : 

“ My fine fellow ! you have the stuff in you for a 
soldier.” 

“ I am just getting a soldier's stuff into me,” re- 
sponded Pisgah, antithetically. 

“ Why do you go abroad, hungry, ill-dressed, and 
houseless, when you can wear the livery of France ?” 

Pisgah thought the soldier a very presuming person. 

“ I am a foreigner,” he said, “ a — a — a French 
Canadian (we speak patois there). My troubles are 
temporary merely. A day or two may make me rich.” 

“ Yet for that day or two,” continued the chasseur , 
“ you will have the humiliation of begging your bread. 
What signifies seven years of honorable service to 
three days of mendicancy and distress ? We are well 
cared for by the nation ; we are respected over the 
world. It is a mean thing to be a soldier in other 
lands ; here we are the gentlemen of France.” 

Pisgah had never looked upon it in that light, and 
said so. 

” Your poverty may have unmanned you,” repeated 
the other ; ” to recover your own esteem do a manly 
act ! We have all feared death as citizens ; but take 
cold steel in your hand, and you can look into your 
grave without a qualm. I say to you,” spoke the 
chasseur, clearly and eloquently, ” be one of us. De- 
cide now, before a doubt mars your better resolve ! 
You are a young man, though the soulless career of a 
citizen has anticipated the whitening of your hairs. 
Plant your foot ; throw back your shoulders ; say 
‘yes ! ’ ” 


66 THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS 


“ I do !” cried Pisgah, with something of the other’s 
enthusiasm ; “ I was born a gentleman, I will die a 
gentleman, or a soldier.” 

They put Mr. Pisgah among the conscripts recently 
levied, and he went about town with a fictitious num- 
ber in his hat, joining in their bacchanal choruses. 
The next day he appeared in white duck jacket and 
pantaloons, looking like an overgrown baker’s boy, 
with a chapeau like a flat, burnt loaf. He was then 
put through the manual, which seemed to indicate all 
possible motions save that of liquoring up, and when 
he was so fatigued that he had not the energy even to 
fall down, he was clasped in the arms of Madame 
Francine, who had traced him to the barracks, but was 
too late to avert his destiny. 

‘“Oh! mon amant /” she cried, falling upon his 
neck. “ Why did you go and do it ? You knew that 
I did not mean to see you starve.” 

“ You have consigned me to a soldier’s grave, 
woman !” answered Pisgah, in the deepest tragedy 
tone. 

“Do not say so, my bonbon!" pleaded the good 
lady, covering him with kisses. “ I would have worn 
my hands to the bone to save you from this dreadful 
life. Suppose you should be sent to Algiers or Mexico, 
or some other heathen country, and die there.” 

It was Pisgah’ s turn to be touched. 

“ My blood is upon your head, Francine ! Have 
you any money ?” 

“ Yes, yes ! a gentleman, a noir, a naigre, for whom 
I have washed, paid me fifty francs this evening. It is 
all here ; take it, my love !” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 67 

“ I do not know, creature ! that your conduct per- 
mits me to do so,” said Pisgah, drawing back. 

“ You will drive me mad if you refuse,” shrieked the 
blanchisseuse. ” Oh ! oh ! how wicked and wretched 
am I !” 

“ Enough, madame ! step over the way for my 
habitual glass of absinthe. Be particular about the 
change. We military men must be careful of our in- 
comes. Stay ! you may embrace me if you like.” 

The poor woman came every day to the barracks, 
bringing some trifle of food or clothing. She washed 
his regimentals, burnished his buckles and boots, paid 
his losses at cards, and bought him books and tobacco. 
She could never persuade herself that Pisgah was not 
her victim, and he found it useful to humor the notion. 

Down in the swift Seine, at her booth in the great 
lavatory, where the ice rushed by and the rain beat in, 
she thought of Pisgah as she toiled ; and though her 
back ached and her hands were flayed, she never won- 
dered if her lot were not the most pitiable, and his in 
part deserved. 

How often should we hard, selfish men, thank God 
for the weaknesses of women ! 

VIII. 

THE MURDER ON THE ALPS. 

And so, with Mr. Pisgah on the road to glory, Mr. 
Simp on the smooth sea, Mr. Freckle in the debtor’s 
jail, Mr. Risque behind his four-in-hand, and Mr. Lees 
in the charity grave, let us sit with the two remaining 
colonists in the cabriolet at Bellinzona ; for it is the 


68 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS 


month of April, and they are to cross the great St. 
Gothard en route for Paris. Here is the scene : a 
gloomy stone building for the diligence company ; two 
great yellow diligences, empty and unharnessed in the 
area before ; one other diligence, packed full, with the 
horses’ heads turned northward, and the blue-nosed 
Swiss clerk calling out the names of passengers ; a 
half-dozen cabriolets looking at each other irresolutely 
and facing all possible ways ; two score of unwashed 
loungers in red neck-kerchiefs and velvet jackets, 
smoking rank, rakish, black cigars ; several streets of 
equal crookedness and filthiness abutting against a 
grimy church, whence beggars, old women, and priests 
emerge continually ; and far above all, as if suspended 
in the air, a grim, battlemented castle, a defence, as it 
seems, against the snowy mountains which march upon 
Bellinzona from every side to crush its orchards and 
vineyards and drown it in the marshes of Lago Mag- 
giore. 

“ Diligenza compito /” cries the clerk, moving toward 
the waiting cabriolet — “ Signore Hugenoto.” 

“ Here !” replies a small, consequential-looking per- 
son, reconnoitring the interior of the vehicle. 

“ Le Signore Plaedo !” 

“ Ci,” responds a dark, erect gentleman, striding 
forward and saying, in clear Italian, “ Are there no 
other passengers ?” 

“ None,” answered the clerk; “ you will have a 
good time together ; please remember the guard !” 

The guard, however, was in advance, a tall person, 
wrapped to the eyes in fur, wearing a silver bugle in 
front of his cap, and covered with buff breeches. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN EARLS. 


69 


He flourished his whip like a fencing-master, moved 
in a cloud of cigar-smoke, and, as he placed his bare 
hand upon the manes of his horses, they reined back, 
as if it burned or frosted them. 

“My ancestry,” says the small gentleman, “en- 
courage no imposition. Shall we give the fellow a 
franc ?” 

The other had already given double the sum, and it 
was odd, now that one looked at him, how pale and 
hard had grown his features. 

“ God bless me, Andy !” cries the little person, 
stopping short ; “ you have not had your breakfast to- 
day ; apply my smelling-bottle to your nose ; you are 
sick, man !” 

“ Thank you,” says the other, “ I prefer brandy ; I 
am only glad that we are quite alone.” 

The paleness faded out of his cheeks as he drank 
deeply of the spirits, but the jaws were set hard, and 
the eyes looked stony and pitiless. The man was ail- 
ing beyond all doubt. 

The whip cracked in front ; the great diligence start- 
ed with a groan and a crackling of joints ; the little 
postilion set the cabriolet going with a chirp and a 
whistle ; the priests and idlers looked up excitedly ; 
the women rushed to the windows to flutter their hand- 
kerchiefs, and all the beggars gave sturdy chase, drop- 
ping benedictions and damnations as they went. 

The small person placed his boots upon the empty 
cushion before and regarded them with some benevo- 
lence ; then he touched his mustache with a comb, 
which he took from the head of his cane. 

“ It is surprising, Andy,” he said, “ how the growth 


70 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


of one’s feet bears no proportion to that of his head. 
Observe those pedals. One of my ancestors must have 
found a wife in China. They have gained no increase 
after all these pilgrimages — and 1 flatter myself that 
they are in some sort graceful — ay ? Now remark my 
head. What does Hamlet, or somebody, say about 
the front of Jove ? This trip to Italy has actually en- 
larged the diameter of my head thirteen barleycorns ! 
Thirteen, by measurement !” 

The tall gentleman said not a word, but compressed 
his tall shoulders into the corner of the coach, and 
muffled his face with his coat-collar and breathed like 
one sleeping uneasily. 

“ It has been a cheap trip !” exclaimed the diminu- 
tive person, changing the theme ; “ you have been an 
invaluable courier, Andy. The most ardent patriot 
cannot call us extravagant.” 

‘‘How much money have you left?” echoed the 
other in a suppressed tone. “ Count it. I will then 
tell you to a sou what will carry us to Paris.” 

The little person drew a wallet from his side-pocket 
and enumerated carefully certain circular notes. 
“ Eleven times twenty is two hundred and twenty ; 
twenty-five times two hundred and twenty, five thou- 
sand five hundred, plus nine gold louis — total, five 
thousand seven hundred and twenty-five francs.” 

One eye only of the large gentleman was visible 
through the folds of his collar. It rested like a 
charmed thing upon the roll of gold and paper. It 
was only an eye, but it seemed to be a whole face, an 
entire man. It was full of thoughts, of hopes, of acts ! 
Had the little person marked it, thus sinister, and glit- 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


7 1 


tering and intense, he would have shrunk as from a 
burning-glass. 

He folded up the wallet, however, and slipped it 
into his inside-pocket, while the other pushed forward 
his hat, so that it concealed even the eye, and sat rigid 
and still in his corner. 

“ You have not named the fare to Paris.” 

The tall man only breathed short and hard. 

“ Don’t you recollect ?” 

” No r 

“ I have a ‘ Galignani ’ here ; perhaps it is adver- 
tised. But hallo, Andy !” 

The exclamation was loud and abrupt, but the silent 
person did not move. 

‘ ‘ The Confederate Privateer Planter will sail from 
Dieppe on Tuesday — (that is, to-morrow evening)— she 
will cruise in the htdian Ocean , if report be true. ’ ' 

The tall man started suddenly and uncovered his 
face with a quick gesture. It was flushed and earnest 
now, and he clutched the journal almost nervously, 
though his voice was yet calm and suppressed. 

“ To-morrow night, did you say ? A cruise on the 
broad sea — glory without peril, gold without work ; I 
would to God that I were on the Planter’s deck, Hu- 
genot !” 

“ Why not do something for ou-ah cause, Andy ?” 

“ I am to return to Paris for what ? To be dunned 
by creditors, to be marked for a parasite at the hotels, 
to be despised by men whom I serve, and pitied by 
men whom I hate. This pirate career suits me. What 
is society to me, whom it has ostracised ? I was a 
gentleman once — quick at books, pleasing in company, 


72 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


shrewd in business. They say that I have power still, 
but lack integrity. Be it so ! Better a freebooter at 
sea than upon the land. I have half made up my 
mind to evil. Hugenot, listen to me ! I believe that 
were I to do one bad, dark deed, it would restore me 
courage, resolution, energy.” 

The little gentleman examined the other with some 
alarm ; but just now the teams commenced the ascent 
of a steep hill, and as he beheld the guard a little way 
in advance, he forgot the other’s earnestness, and raised 
his lunette. 

“ Andy,” he said, “ by my great ancestry ! I have 
seen that man before. Look ! the height, the style, 
the carriage, are familiar. Who is he ?” 

His co-voyageur was without curiosity ; the former 
pallidness and silentness resumed their dominion over 
him, and the lesser gentleman settled moodily back to 
liis newspaper. 

No word was interchanged for several hours. They 
passed through shaggy glens, under toppled towers and 
battlements, by squalid villages, and within the sound 
of dashing streams. If they descended ever, it was to 
gain breath for a longer ascent ; for now the mountain 
snows were above them on either side, and the Alps 
rose sublimely impassable in front. The hawks 
careened beneath them ; the chamois above dared not 
look down for dizziness, and Hugenot said, at Ariola, 
that they were taking lunch in a balloon. The manner 
of Mr. Plade now altered marvellously. It might have 
been his breakfast that gave him spirit and speech ; he 
sang a merry, bad song, which the rocks echoed back, 
and all the goitred women at the roadside stopped with 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


73 


their pack burdens to listen. He told a thousand 
anecdotes. He knew all the story of the pass ; how 
the Swiss, filing through it, had scattered the Milanese ; 
how Suwarrow and Massena had made its sterility fer- 
tile with blood. 

Hugenot’s admiration amounted to envy. He had 
never known his associate so brilliant, so pleasing ; the 
exaltation was too great, indeed, to arise from any or- 
dinary cause ; but Hugenot was not shrewd enough to 
inquire into the affair. He wearied at length of the 
talk and of the scene, and when at last they reached 
the region of perpetual ice, he closed the cabriolet win- 
dows, and watched the filtering flakes, and heard the 
snow crush under the wheels, and dropped into a deep 
sleep which the other seemed to share. 

The clouds around them made the mountains dusky, 
and the interior of the carriage was quite gloomy. At 
length the large gentleman turned his head, so that his 
ear could catch every breath, and he regarded the dim 
outlines of the lesser with motionless interest. Then 
he took a straw from the litter at his feet, and, bending 
forward, touched his comrade’s throat. The other 
snored measuredly for a while, but the titillation 
startled him at length, and he beat the air in his slum- 
ber. When the irritation ceased he breathed tranquilly 
again, and then the first-named placed his hand softly 
into the sleeper’s pocket. He drew forth the wallet 
with steady fingers, and as coolly emptied it of its 
contents. These he concealed in the leg of his boot, 
but replaced the book where he had found it. For 
a little space he remained at rest, leaning against the 
back of the carriage, with his head bent upon his 


74 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


breast and his hands clenched like one at bay and in 
doubt. 

The slow advance of the teams and the frequent 
changes of direction — sometimes so abrupt as almost to 
reverse the cabriolet — advised him that they were 
climbing the mountain by zigzags or terraces. He 
knew that they were in the Val Tremola , or Trembling 
Way, and he shook his comrade almost fiercely, as if 
relieved by some idea which the place suggested. 

“ Hugenot,” he said, “ rouse up ! The grandeur of 
the Alps is round about us ; you must not miss this 
scene. Come with me ! Quit the vehicle ! I know 
the place, and will exhibit it.” 

The other, accustomed to obey, leaped to the ground 
immediately, and followed through the snow, ankle 
deep, till they passed the diligence, which kept in ad- 
vance. The guard could not be seen — he might have 
resorted to the interior ; and the two pedestrians at 
once left the roadway, climbing its elbows by a path 
more or less distinctly marked, so that after a half hour 
they were perhaps a mile ahead. The agility of Mr. 
Plade during this episode was the marvel of his compan- 
ion. He scaled the rocks like a goatherd, and his foot- 
tracks in the snow were long, like the route of a giant. 
The ice could not betray the sureness of his stride ; 
the rare, thin atmosphere was no match for his broad, 
deep chest. He shouted as he went, and tossed great 
boulders down the mountain, and urged on his flagging 
comrade by cheer and taunt and invective. No 
madman set loose from captivity could be guilty of so 
extravagant, exaggerated elation. 

At last they stood upon a little bridge spanning a 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


75 


chasm like a cobweb. A low parapet divided it from 
the awful gulf. On the other side the mountain lifted 
its jagged face, clammy with icicles, and far over all 
towered the sterile peaks, above the reach of clouds or 
lightnings, forever in the sunshine — forever desolate. 

“ Stand fast !” said the leader, suddenly cold and 
calm. “ Uncover, that the snow-flakes may give us 
the baptism of nature ! There is no human God at 
this vast height ; they worship Him in the flat world 
below. Give me your hand and look down ! You are 
not dizzy ? One should be free from the baseness of 
fear, standing here upon St. Gothard.” 

“ If I had no qualm before,” said Hugenot, “ your 
words would make me shudder.” 

“ You have heard of the ‘ valley of the shadow ’? 
Was your ideal like this? I told you in Florence of 
the great poet Dante. You have here at a glance more 
beauty and dread conjoined than even his mad fancy 
could conjure up. That is the Tessino, braining itself 
in cataracts. Yonder, where the clouds make a golden 
lake, laving forests of firs, lies Italy as the Goths first 
beheld it, with their spears quivering. See how the 
eagles beat the mist beneath ! — that was a symbol that 
the Roman standards should be rent.” 

The other, half in charm, half in awe, listened like 
one spell-bound, with his fingers tingling and his eye- 
balls throbbing. 

“ This silence,” said the elder, “ is more freezing 
to me than the bitterness of the cold. The very snow- 
flakes are dumb ; nothing makes discord but the ava- 
lanche ; it is always twilight ; men lie down in the 
snows to die, but they are numb and cannot cry.” 


7 6 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARTS. 


“ Be still,” replied the other, ‘‘ your talk is strangely 
out of place. -I feel as if my ancestors in their shrouds 
were beside me.” 

“ You are not wrong,” cried the greater, raising his 
voice till it became shrill and terrible ; “ your last mo- 
ments are passing ; that yawning ravine is your grave. 
I told you an hour ago how one bad, dark deed would 
redeem me. It is done ! I have robbed you, and 
your death is essential to my safety.” 

Hugenot sank upon the snow of the parapet, speech- 
less and almost lifeless. He clasped his hands, but 
could not raise his head ; the whole scene faded from 
his eye. If he had been weak before, he was impotent 
now. 

The strong man held him aloft by the shoulders with 
an iron grasp, and his cold eye gave evidence to the 
horrible validity of his words. 

“ I do not lie or play, Hugenot,” he said, in the 
same clear voice ; ‘‘I have premeditated this deed for 
many weeks. You are doomed ! Only a miracle can 
help you. The dangers of the pass will be my excul- 
pation ; it will be surmised that you fell into the ravine. 
There will be no marks of violence upon you but those 
of the sharp stones. We have been close comrades. 
Only Omniscience can have seen premeditation. I 
have brought you into this wilderness to slay you !” 

The victim had recovered sufficiently to catch a part 
of this confession. His lips framed only one reply — 
the dying man’s last straw : 

” After death !” he said ; “ have you thought of 
that?” 

“ Ay,” answered the other, “ long and thoroughly. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


77 


Phantoms, remorses and hells — they have all had their 
argument. I take the chances.” 

It was only a moment’s struggle that ensued. The 
wretch clung to the parapet, and called on God and 
mercy. He was lifted on high in the strong arms, and 
whirled across the barrier. The other looked grimly 
at the falling burden. He wondered if a dog or a goat 
would have been so long falling. The distance was 
profound indeed ; but to the murderer’s sanguine 
thought the body hung suspended in the air. It would 
not sink. The clouds seemed to bear it up for testi- 
mony ; the cold cliffs held aloft their heads for justice ; 
the snow-flakes fell like the ballots of jurymen, voting 
for revenge — all nature seemed roused to animation by 
this one act. An icicle dropped with a keen ring like 
a knife, and the stream below pealed a shrill alarum. 

He had done the bad, dark deed. Was he more 
resolute or courageous now that he had taken blood 
upon his hands and shadow upon his soul ? 

The body disappeared at length, carried downward 
by the torrent ; but a wild bird darted after it, as if to 
reveal the secret of its concealment, and then a noise 
like a human footfall crackled in the snow. 

“ I like a man who takes the chances,” said a cold, 
hard voice ; “but Chance, Andy Plade, decides against 
you to-day.” 

IX. 

THE ONE GOOD DEED OF A PRIVATEERSMAN. 

The murderer turned from his reverie with hands 
extended and trembling ; the snow was not more 
bleached than his bloodless face, and his feet grew 


73 


THE REBEL COLONY LN EARLS. 


slippery and infirm. An alcove, which he had not 
marked, was hewn in the brow of the precipice. It had 
been intended to shelter pilgrims from the wind and 
the snow ; and there, wrapped in his buff garments, 
whose hue, assimilating to that of the rock, absorbed 
him from detection, stood a witness to the deed — the 
guard to the diligence — none other than Auburn Risque. 

For an instant only the accused shrank back. Then 
his body grew short and compact ; he was gathering 
himself up for a life-struggle. 

“ Hold off ! M said Risque, in his old, hard, meas- 
ured way ; “we guards go armed ; if you move, I shall 
scatter your brains in the snow ; if I miss you, a note 
of this whistle will summon my postilions.” 

The cold face was never more emotionless ; he held a 
revolver in his hand, and kept the other in his blank, 
spotted eye, as if locating the vital parts with the end 
to bring him down at a shot. 

“You do not play well,” said Risque at length, when 
the other, ghastly white, sat speechless upon the para- 
pet ; “if you were the student of chance, that I have 
been, you would know that at murder the odds are 
always against you !” 

“You will not betray me?” pleaded Plade ; “so 
inveterate a gamester can have no conventional ideas 
of life or crime. I am ready to pay for your discretion 
with half my winnings.” 

“ I am a gambler,” said Risque, curtly ; “ not an 
assassin ! I always give my opponents fair show. But 
I will not touch blood-money.” 

“ What fair show do you give me ?” 

“Two hours’ start. I am responsible for my pas- 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


79 


sengers. Go on, unharmed, if you will. But at Hos- 
pice I shall proclaim you. Every moment that you 
falter spins the rope for your gallows !” 

Plade did not dally, but took to flight at once. He 
climbed by the angles of the terraces, and saw the dili- 
gence far below tugging up the circuitous road. He 
ran at full speed ; no human being was abroad besides, 
but yet there were other footfalls in the snow, other 
sounds, as of a man breathing hard and pursued upon 
the lonely mountain. The fugitive turned — once, 
twice, thrice ; he laughed aloud, and shook his clenched 
hand at the sky. Still the flat, dead tramp followed 
close behind, and the pace seemed not unfamiliar. It 
could not be — his blood ceased to circulate, and stood 
freezing at the thought — was it the march, the tread of 
Hugenot ? 

He dropped a loud curse, like a howl, and kept upon 
his way. The footfalls were as swift ; he saw their 
impressions at his heels — prints of a small, lithe, 
human foot, made by no living man. He shut his eyes 
and his ears, but the consciousness remained, the inex- 
plicable phenomenon of some invisible but familiar 
thing which would not leave him ; which made its 
register as it passed ; which no speed could outstrip, 
no argument exorcise. 

Was it a sick fancy, a probed heart, or did the phan- 
tom of the dead man indeed give chase ? 

Ah ! there is but one class of folks whose faith in 
spirits nothing can shake — the guilty, the bloody- 
handed. 

He came to a perturbed rest at the huge, half-hospit- 
able Hospice, to the enthusiasm of the postilions. 


8o 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


“ Will the gentleman have a saddle-horse ?” 

“ A chariot ?” 

“ A cabriolet ?” 

“ Ten francs to Andermatt !” 

“ Thirty francs to Fluelen !” 

“ One hundred francs,” cried Plade, “ for the fleet- 
est pony to Andermatt. Ten francs to the postilion 
who can saddle him in two minutes. My mother is 
dying in Lyons.” 

He climbed one of the dark flights of stairs, and an 
old, uncleanly monk gave him a glass of Kerschwasser. 
He descended to the stables, and cursed the Swiss 
lackeys into speed. He gave such liberal largess that 
there was an involuntary cheer, and as he galloped 
away the great diligence appeared in sight to rouse his 
haste to frenzy. 

The telegraph kept above him — a single line ; he 
knew the tardiness of foot when pursued by the light- 
ning. In one place, the conductor, wrenched from the 
insulators, dropped almost to the ground. There was 
a strap upon his saddle ; he reined his nag to the side 
of the road, and, making a knot about the wire, dashed 
off at a bound ; the iron snapped behind ; his triumph- 
ant laugh pealed yet on the twilight, when the cries of 
his pursuers rang over the fields of snow. They were 
aroused ; he was fleetly mounted, but they came behind 
in sledges. 

The night closed over the road as he caught the 
wizard bells. The moonlight turned the peaks to fire. 
The dark firs shook down their burdens of snow. 
There were cries of wild beasts from the ravines below. 
The post-houses were red with firelight. The steed 


THE REBEL COLONY IN BARIS. 


81 


floundered through the snow-drifts driven by blow and 
halloo. It was a fearful ride upon the high Alps ; the 
sublimity of nature bowed down to the mystery of 
crime ! 

Bright noon, on the third day succeeding, saw the 
fugitive emerge from the railway station at Dieppe. 
He had escaped the Swiss frontier with his life, but 
had failed to make sure that escape by reaching the 
harbor at the appointed time. Broken in spirit, grown 
old already, he faltered toward the town, and, stopping 
on the fosse-bridge, looked sorrowfully across the ship- 
ping in the dock. Something caught his regard amid 
the cloud of tri-color ; he looked again, shading his eye 
with a tremulous palm. There could not be a doubt 
— it was the Confederate standard — the Stars and Bars. 

The Planter had been delayed ; she waited with 
steam up and an expectant crew ; her slender masts 
leaned against the sky ; her anchor was lifted ; a knot 
of idlers watched her from the quay. 

In a moment Mr. Plade was on board. He asked 
for the commander, and a short, gristly, sunburnt per- 
sonage being indicated, he introduced himself with that 
plausible speech which had wooed so many to their fall. 

“I am a Charlestonian,” said Plade; “a Yankee 
insulted me at the Grand Hotel ; we met in the Bois 
de Boulogne, and I ran him through the body. His 
friends in Paris conspire against my life. I ask to 
save it now, only to die on your deck, that it may be 
worth something to my country.” 

They went below, and the privateer put the applicant 
through a rigid examination. 

‘ ‘ -This vessel must get to sea to night, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ I 


82 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


will not hazard trouble with the French authorities 
by keeping you here. Spend the afternoon ashore ; we 
sail at eleven o’clock precisely ; if at that time you 
come aboard, I will take you.” 

Plade protested his gratitude, but the skipper 
motioned him to peace. 

“You seem to be a gentleman,” he added ; “if I 
find you so, you shall be my purser. But, hark !” he 
looked keenly at the other, and laid his hand upon his 
throat — “ I am under the espionage of the Yankee am- 
bassador. There are spies who seek to join my crew 
for treasonable ends ; if 1 find you one of these, you 
shall hang to my yard-arm !” 

The felon walked into the dim old city, and seated 
himself in a wine-shop. Some market folks were chant- 
ing in patois , and their light-heartedness enraged him. 
He turned up a crooked street, and stopped before an 
ancient church, grotesque with broken buttresses, 
pinnacles, and gargoyles. The portal was wide open, 
and, as he entered, some scores of school-children burst 
suddenly into song. It seemed to him an accusation, 
shouted by a choir of angels. 

At the end of the city, facing the sea, rose a massive 
castle. He scaled its stairs, and passed through the 
courtyard, and, crossing the farther moat, stood upon 
a grassy hill — once an outwork — whence the blue 
channel was visible half way to England. 

A knot of soldiers came out to regard him, and his 
fears magnified their curiosity ; he ran down the para- 
pet, to their surprise, and re-entered the town by a 
roundabout way. “ I will take a chamber,” he said, 
“ and shun observation.” 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


83 


An old woman, in a starched cap, who talked inces- 
santly, showed him a number of rooms in a great stone 
building. He chose a garret among the chimney-stacks, 
and lit a fire, and ordered a newspaper and a bottle of 
brandy. He sat down to read in loneliness. As he 
surmised, the murder was printed among the “ Faits 
Divers ; 9 it gave his name and the story of the tragedy. 
His chair rattled upon the tiles as he read, and the 
tongs, wherewith he touched the fire, clattered in his 
nervous fingers. 

The place was not more composed than himself ; the 
flame was the noisiest in the world ; it crackled and 
crashed and made horrible shadows on the walls. 
There were rats under the floor whose gnawings were 
like human speech, and the old house appeared to settle 
now and then with a groan as if unwilling to shelter 
guilt. As he looked down upon the clustering roofs of 
the town they seemed wonderfully like a crowd of peo- 
ple gazing up at his retreat. All the dormer-windows 
were so many pitiless eyes, and the chimney-pots were 
guns and cannon to batter down his eyrie. 

When night fell upon the city and sea, his fancies 
were not less alarming. He could not rid himself of 
the idea that the dead man was at his side. In vain he 
called upon his victim to appear, and laughed till the 
windows shook. It was there, there, always there ! 
He did not see it — but it was there ! He felt its 
breath, its eye, its influence. It leaned across his 
shoulder ; it gossiped with the shadows ; it laid its 
hand heavily upon his pocket where lay the unholy 
gold. Some prints of saints and the Virgin upon the 
wall troubled him ; their faces followed him wherever 


8 4 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


he turned ; he tore them down at length, and tossed 
them in the fire, but they blazed with so great flame 
that he cried out for fear. 

The town-bells struck the hours ; how far apart were 
the strokes ! They tolled rather than pealed, as if for 
an execution, and the lamps of some passing carriages 
made a journey as of torches upon the ceiling. 

After nine o’clock there was a heavy tread upon the 
stairs. It kept him company, and he was glad of its 
coming ; but it drew so close, at length, that he stood 
upright, with the cold sweat upon his forehead. 

The steps halted at his threshold ; the door swung 
open ; a corporal and a soldier stood without, and the 
former saluted formally : 

“ Monsieur the stranger, will remain in his chamber 
under guard. I grieve to say that he is an object of 
grave suspicion. Au revoir /” 

The corporal retired without waiting for a reply ; the 
soldier entered, and, leaning his musket against the 
wall, drew a chair before the door and sat down. The 
firelight fell upon his face after a moment, and revealed 
to Mr. Plade his old associate, Pisgah ! 

The former uttered a cry of hope and surprise ; the 
soldier waved him back with a menace. 

“I know you,” he said; “but I am here upon 
duty ; besides, I have no friendship with a murderer.” 

“ We are both victims of a mistake ! This accusa- 
tion is not true. Will you take my hand ?” 

” I am forbidden to speak upon guard,” answered 
Pisgah, sullenly. “ Resume your chair.” 

“ At least join me in a glass.” 

“ There is blood in it,” said Pisgah. 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS . 


85 


“I swear to you, no ! Let me ring for your old 
beverage, absinthe.” 

The soldier halted, irresolutely ; the liquor came be- 
fore he could refuse. When once his lips touched the 
vessel, Mr. Plade knew that there was still a chance 
for life. 

In an hour Mr. Pisgah was impotent from intoxica- 
tion ; his musket was flung down the stairway, the door 
was bolted upon him, and the prisoner was gone. 

He gained the Planter’s deck as the screw made its 
first revolution ; they turned the channel-piles with a 
good-by gun ; the motley crew cheered heartily as they 
cleared the mole. 

The pirate was at sea on her mission of plunder — 
the murderer was free ! 

The engines stopped abreast the city ; the steamer 
lay almost motionless, for there were lights upon the 
beach ; a shrill “ Ahoy !” broke over the intervening 
waters, and the dip of oars indicated some pursuit. 
The crew, half drunken, rallied to the edge of the ves- 
sel ; knives glittered amid the confusion of oaths and 
the click of pistols, while Mr. Plade hastened to the 
skipper’s side, and urged him for pity and mercy to 
hasten seaward. 

The other motioned him back, coldly, and the boat- 
swain piped all hands upon deck. Lafitte nor Kidd 
never looked down such desperate faces as this gristly 
privateer, when his buccaneers were around him. 

“ Seamen,” he spoke aloud, ‘‘you are afloat ! Gold 
and glory await you ; you shall glut yourselves by the 
ruin of your enemy, and count your plunder by the 
light of his burning merchantmen.” 


86 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


The knives flickered in the torchlight, and a cheer, 
like the howl of Jhe damned, went up. 

“ On the brink of such fortune, you find yourselves 
imperilled ; treason is with you ; this pursuit, which 
we attend, is a part of its programme ! There is, 
within the sound of my voice, a spy ! — a Yankee !” 

The weapons rang again ; the desperadoes pressed 
forward, demanding with shrieks and imprecations that 
the man should be named. 

“ He is here,” answered the captain, turning full 
upon the astonished fugitive. “ He came to me with 
a story of distress. I pitied him, and gave him shel- 
ter ; but I telegraphed to Paris to test his veracity, and 
I find that he lied. No man has been slain in a duel 
as he states. I believe him to be a Federal emissary, 
and he is in our power.” 

A dozen rough hands struck Plade to the deck ; he 
staggered up, with blood upon his face, and called 
Heaven to witness that he was no traitor. 

“ Did you speak the truth to me to-day ?” cried the 
accuser. 

“ I did not ; had I done so, you would have refused 
me relief.” 

“ What are you then ? Speak !” 

The murderer cowered, with a face so blanched that 
the blood ceased to flow at its gashes. 

“ I cannot, I dare not tell !” he muttered. 

The skipper made a sign to an attendant. A rope 
from the yard-arm was flung about the felon’s neck, 
and made fast in a twinkling. He struggled desper- 
ately, but the fierce buccaneers held him down ; his 
clothing was rent, and his hairs dishevelled ; he made 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS . 


87 


three frantic struggles for speech ; but the loud cheers 
mocked his words as they brandished their cutlasses in 
his eyes. 

Then began that strange lifetime of reminiscence ; 
that trooping of sins and cruelties, in sure, unbroken 
continuity, through the reeling brain ; that moment 
of years ; that great day of judgment, in a thought ; 
that last winkful of light, which flashes back upon 
time, and makes its frailties luminous. And, higher 
than all offences, rose that of the fair young wife 
deserted abroad, left to the alternatives of shame or 
starvation. Her wail came even now, from the bed of 
the crowded hospital, to follow him into the world of 
shadows. 

“ Monsieur the Commander,” hailed the spokesman 
in the launch, “ the government of his Imperial Majes- 
ty does not wish to interpose any obstacle to the depar- 
ture of the Confederate cruiser. It is known, however, 
that a person guilty of an atrocious crime is concealed 
on board. In this paper, Monsieur the Capitaine will 
find all the specifications. The name of the person, 
Plade. The crime of the person, murder, with pre- 
meditation. The giving up of said person is essential 
to the departure of the cruiser from his Imperial 
Majesty’s waters.” 

There was blank silence on the deck of the pri- 
vateer ; the torches in the launch threw a glare upon 
the water and sky. They lit up something struggling 
between both at the tip of the rocking yard-arm. It 
was the effigy of a man, bound and suspended, around 
which swept timidly the bats and gulls, and the sea 
wind beat it with a shrill, jubilant cry. 


88 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


“ I have done justice unconsciously,’ 1 said the pri- 
vateer ; “ may it be remembered for me when I shall 
do injustice consciously !” 


X. 

THE SURVIVING COLONISTS. 

The catastrophe of the Colony and the episode hav- 
ing been attained, we have only to leave Mr. Pisgah 
in Algiers, whither court-martial consigned him, with 
the penalty of hard labor, and Mr. Risque on the stage 
route he was so eminently fitted to adorn. The un- 
happy Freckle continued in the prison of Clicliy, and, 
having nothing else to do, commenced the novel process 
of thinking. The prison stood high up on ClichyHill, 
walled and barred and guarded, like other jails, but 
within it a fair margin of liberty was allowed the bank- 
rupts, just sufficient to make their fate terrible by 
temptation. Some good soul had endowed it with a 
library ; newspapers came every day ; a cafe was at- 
tached to it, where spirituous liquors were prohibited, 
to the wrath of the dry throats and raging thirsts of the 
captives ; there was a garden behind it, and a billiard 
saloon, but these luxuries were not gratuitous ; poor 
Freckle could not even pay his one sou per diem to 
cook his rations, so that the Prisoners’ Relief Associa- 
tion had to make him a present of it. He spent his 
time between his bare, cheerless bedroom and the pub- 
lic hall. There were many Americans in the place ; 
but none of them were friendly with him when he was 
found to have no cash. Yet he heard them speak to- 
gether of their countrymen who had lain in the same 


THE REBEL COLONY IN PARIS. 


89 


jail years before. Yonder was the room of Horace 
Greeley, incarcerated for a debt which was not his 
own ; here the blood-stains of the Pennsylvania youth 
who looked out of the window, heedless of warning, 
and was shot dead by the guard ; there the ancient 
chair, in which Hallidore, the Creole, sat so often, 
possessor of a million francs, but too obstinate to pay 
his tailor’s bill and go free. While Freckle thought of 
these, it was suggested to him that he was a very wicked 
man. The tuitions of his patriarchal father came to 
mind ; he was seen on his knees, to the infinite amuse- 
ment of the other debtors, who were, however, quite 
too polite to laugh in his face, and he no longer staked 
his ration of wine at cards, whereby he had commonly 
lost it, but held long conversations with an ardent old 
priest who visited the jail. The priest gave Freckle 
brevieres and catechisms, and told him that there was 
no peace of mind outside of the apostolic fold. 

So Freckle diligently embraced the ancient Romish 
faith, renounced the tenets of his plain old sire as false 
and heretical, and earnestly prepared himself to enter 
the priesthood. 

In this frame of mind he was found by Mr. Simp, 
who had unexpectedly returned to Paris, and, finding 
himself again prosperous, came to release Freckle from 
the toils of Clichy. 

The latter waved him away. “ I wish to know none 
of you,” he said. “ I shall serve out this term, and 
never again speak to an American abroad.” 

He was firm, and achieved his purpose. Enthusiasm 
often answers for brains, and Freckle’s religious zeal 
made him a changed man. He entered a Jesuits’ 


9 ° 


THE REBEL COLONY LN EARLS. 


school after his discharge, and in another fashion be- 
came as stern, severe, and self-denying as had been his 
father. He sometimes saw his old comrade, Simp, 
driving down the Champs Elysees as Freckle came from 
church in Paris, but the gallant did not recognize the 
young priest in his dark gown and hose, and wide- 
rimmed hat. 

They followed their several directions, and in the 
end, with the lessening fortunes of the Confederacy, 
grew more moody, and yet more ruined by the con- 
sciousness that after once suffering the agony of ex- 
patriation, they had not improved the added chance to 
make of themselves men, not Colonists. 

It is not the pleasantest phase of our human nature 
to depict, but since we have essayed it, let it close 
with its own surrounding shadow. 

If we have given no light touch of womanhood to re- 
lieve its sombre career, we have failed to be artistic in 
order to be true. 

But that which made the Colonists weak has passed 
away. There are no longer slaves at home — may there 
be no exiles abroad ! 


LITTLE GRISETTE. 












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LITTLE GRISETTE 


Little Grisette, you haunt me yet ; 

My passion for you was long ago, 

Before my head was heavy with snow. 
Or mine eye had lost its lustre of jet. 

In the dim old Quartier Latin we met ; 

We made our vows one night in June, 
And all our life was honeymoon ; 

We did not ask if it were sin, 

We did not go to kirk to know. 

We only loved and let the world 
Hum on its pelfish way below ; 

Marked from our castle in the air, 

How pigmy its triumphal cars : 

Eight stories from the entry stair. 

But near the stars ! 

Little Grisette, rich or in debt. 

We were too fond to chide or sigh — 
Never so poor that I could not buy 
A sweet, sweet kiss from my little Grisette. 
If I could nothing gain or get, 

By hook, or crook, or song, or story, 
Along the starving road to glory, 

I marvelled how your nimble thimble, 

As to a tune, danced fast and fleeting. 
And stopped my pen to catch the music, 
But only heard my heart a-beating ; 


94 


LITTLE GRISETTE. 


The quaint old roofs and gables airy 
Flung down the light for you to wear it, 
And made my love a queen in faery, 

To haunt my garret. 

Little Grisette, the meals you set 

Were sweeter to me than banquet feast ; 
Your face was a blessing fit for a priest ; 
At your smile the candle went out in a pet ; 
The wonderful chops I shall never forget ! 

If the wine was a trifle too sharp or rank, 
We kissed each time before we drank. 
The old gilt clock, aye wrong, was swinging 
The waxen floor your feet reflected ; 

And dear Beranger’s chansons singing, 

You tricked at picquet till detected. 

You fill my pipe ; — is it your eyes 
Whereat I light your cigarette ? 

On all but me the darkness lies 
And my Grisette ! 

Little Grisette, the soft sunset 

Lingered a long while, that we might stay 
To mark the Seine from the breezy quay 
Around the bridges foam and fret ; 

How came it that your eyes were wet 
When I ambitiously would be 
A man renowned across the sea ? 

I told you I should come again — 

It was but half way round the globe — 

To bring you diamonds for your faith, 

And for your gray a silken robe : 

You were more wise than lovers are ; 

I meant, sweetheart, to tell you true, 

I said a tearful lk An rcvoir;" 

You said, “ Adieu ! ” 


LITTLE GRISETTE. 


95 


Little Grisette, we both regret. 

For I am wedded more than wived ; 
Those careless days in thought revived 
But teach me I cannot forget. 

Perhaps old age must pay the debt 
Young sin contracted long ago — • 

I only know, I only know, 

That phantoms haunt me everywhere 
By busy day, in peopled gloam — 

They rise between me and my prayer. 
They mar the holiness of home ! 

My wife is proud, my boy is cold, 

I dare not speak of what I fret : 

’Tis my fond youth with thee I fold. 
Little Grisette ! 



MARRIED ABROAD. 



MARRIED ABROAD. 

An American Romance of the Quartier Latin. 


PART I. 

TEMPTATION. 

To say that Ralph Flare was “ lonesome” would 
convey a feeble idea of his condition. Four months in 
England had gone by wearily enough ; but in this great 
city of Paris, where he might as well have had no 
tongue at all, for the uses he could put it to, he pined 
and chafed — and finally swore. 

An oath, if not relief in itself, conduces to that 
effect, and it happened in this case that a stranger 
heard it. 

“You are English, ” said the stranger, turning 
shortly upon Ralph Flare. 

“ I am not,” replied that youth, “ I am an Ameri- 
can.” 

“ Then we are countrymen,” cried the other. 
“ Have you dwelt long in the Hotel du Hibou ?” 

Ralph Flare stated that he hadn’t and that he had, 
and that he was bored and sick of it, and had resolved 
to go back to the Republic, and fling away his life in 
its armies. 


I oo MARRIED ABROAD. 


“ Pooh ! pooh !” shouted the other, “ I see your 
trouble — you have no acquaintances. It is six o’clock ; 
come with me to dinner, and you shall know half of 
Paris, men and women.” 

They filed down the tortuous Rue Jacob, now thrice 
gloomy by the closing shadows of evening, and turning 
into the Rue de Seine, stopped before the doorway of 
a little painted boutique , whereon was written “ Cre7nery 
du, Quartier Latin . ’ ’ » 

A tall, sallow, bright-eyed Frenchman was seated at 
a fragment of counter within the smallest apartment in 
the world, and addressing this man as ” Pere George” 
the stranger passed through a second sash doorway and 
introduced Ralph Flare to the most miscellaneous and 
democratic assemblage that he had ever beheld in his 
life. 

Two long yellow tables reached lengthwise down a 
long, narrow salon, the floor whereof was made of tiles, 
and the light whereof fizzed and flamed from two un- 
ruly burners. A door at the farther end opened upon 
a cook-room, and the cook, a scorched and meagre 
woman, was standing now in the firelight, talking in a 
high key, as only a Frenchwoman can talk. 

Then there was Madame George, fat and handsome, 
and gossipy likewise, with a baby, a boy, and a daugh- 
ter ; and the patrons of the place, twenty or more in 
number, were eating and laughing and all speaking at 
the same time, so that Ralph Flare was at first stunned 
and afterward astonished. 

His new acquaintance, Terrapin, went gravely 
around the table, shaking hands with every guest, and 
Ralph was wedged into the remotest corner, with 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


ioi 


Terrapin upon his right, and upon his left a creature 
so naive and petite that he thought her a girl at first, 
but immediately corrected himself and called her a 
child. 

Terrapin addressed her as Suzette, and stated that 
his friend Ralph was a stranger and quite solitary ; 
whereat Suzette turned upon him a pair of soft, twink- 
ling eyes, and laughed very much as a peach might do, 
if it were possible for a peach to laugh. He could 
only say a horrible bon jour, and make the superfluous 
intimation that he could not speak French ; and when 
Madame George gave him his choice of a dozen unpro- 
nounceable dishes, he looked so utterly blank and baffled 
that Suzette took the liberty of ordering dinner for 
him. 

“You won’t get the run of the language, Flare,” 
said Terrapin, carelessly, “until you find a wife. A 
woman is the best dictionary.” 

“You mean, I suppose,” said Flare, “ a wife for a 
time.” 

Little Suzette was looking oddly at him as he faced 
her, and when Ralph blushed she turned quietly to her 
potage and gave him a chance to remark her. 

She had dark, smooth hair, closing over a full, pale 
forehead, and her shapely head was balanced upon a 
fair, round neck. There was an alertness in her erect 
ear, and open nostril, and pointed brows which indi- 
cated keen perception and comprehension ; yet even 
more than this generic quickness, without which she 
could not have been French, the gentleness of Suzette 
was manifest. 

Ralph thought to himself that she must be good. It 


102 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


was the face of a sweet sister or a bright daughter, or 
one of those school-children with whom he had played 
long ago. And withal she was very neat. If any 
commandment was issued especially to the French, it 
enjoined tidiness ; but this child was so quietly attired 
that her cleanliness seemed a matter of nature, not of 
command. Her cheap coral ear-drops and the thin 
band of gold upon her white finger could not have been 
so fitting had they been of diamonds ; and her tresses, 
inclosed in a fillet of beads, were tied in a breadth of 
blue ribbon which made a cunning lover’s-knot above. 
A plain collar and wristbands, a bright cotton dress 
and dark apron, and a delicate slipper below— these 
were the components of a picture which Ralph thought 
the loveliest and pleasantest and best that he had ever 
known. 

In his own sober city of the Middle States he would 
have been ashamed to connect with these innocent fea- 
tures a doubt, a light thought, a desire. Yet here in 
France, where climate, or custom, or man had changed 
the relations though not the nature of woman, he did 
but as the world, in blending with Suzette’s tranquil 
face a series of ideas which he dared not associate with 
what he had called pure, beautiful, or happy. 

Now and then they spoke together, unintelligibly of 
course, but very merrily, and Ralph’s appetite was that 
of the great carnivora ; potage, beef, mutton, pullet, 
vanished like waifs, and then came the salad, which he 
could not make, so that Suzette helped him again with 
her sprightly white fingers, contriving so marvellous a 
dish that Ralph thought her a little magician, and 
wanted to eat salad till da) break. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


T °3 


“ New for the cards !” cried Terrapin, when they 
had finished the cafe and the eau-de-vie ; and as the 
parties ranged themselves about the greater table, Ter- 
rapin, who knew everybody, gave their names and 
avocations. 

“ That is Boetia, a journalist on the Siecle j you will' 
observe that he smokes his cigars quite down to the 
stump. The little man beside him, with a blouse, is 
Haynau, fellow of the College of Beaux Arts — dead- 
broke, as usual ; and his friend, the sallow chap, is 
Moise, whose father died last week, leaving him ten 
thousand francs. Moise, you will see, has a wife, Fee- 
fine, though I suspect him of bigamy ; and the tall girl, 
with hair like midnight and a hard voice, is at present 
unmarried. Those four fellows and their dames are 
students of medicine. They have one hundred francs 
a month apiece, and keep house upon it.” 

“And Suzette,” said Ralph Flare, impatiently. 

“ Oh, she is a couturiere , a dressmaker, but just 
now a clerk at a glover’s. She has dwelt sagely, gen- 
erally speaking. She breakfasts upon five sous ; a 
roll, cafe, and a bunch of grapes — her dinner costs 
eighty centimes, and she makes a franc and a half a 
day, leaving enough to pay her room-rent.” 

“ It is a little sum — seven dollars and a half a month 
— how is the girl to dress ?” 

Terrapin shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. 

They played “ ramps, “ an uproarious game ; and 
Suzette was impetuous and noisy as the rest, with 
brightened cheeks and eyes and a clear, silvery voice. 
The stake was a bottle of Bordeaux. Few women 
play cards honestly, and Suzette was the first to go 


io4 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


out ; but seeing that Ralph floundered and lost con- 
tinually, she gave him her attention, looking over his 
hand, and talking for him, and counting with so dex- 
terous deceit that he escaped also, while Terrapin paid 
for the wine. 

It was not the most reputable amusement in the 
world ; but the hours were winged, and midnight came 
untimely. Suzette tied on a saucy brown flat stream- 
ing with ribbons, and bade them good-night, ending 
with Ralph, in whose palm her little fingers lay pulsing 
an instant, bringing the blood to his hand. 

How mean the cremery and its patrons seemed now 
that she was gone ! The great clamp at the portal of 
his hotel sounded very ghostly as he knocked ; the con- 
cierge was a hideous old man in gown and nightcap. 

“ Toujours seul , monsieur he said, with an ugly 
grin. 

“ What does that mean, Terrapin ?” said Ralph. 

“ He says that you always come home alone.” 

“ Flow else should I come ?” said Ralph, dubiously. 

“ How, indeed ?” answered Terrapin. 

It was without doubt a dim old pile — the Hotel du 
Hibou. What murderers, and thieves, and Jacobins 
might not have ascended the tiles of the grand stair- 
way ? There was a cumbrous mantel in his chamber, 
funereal with griffins, and there were portraits with 
horribly profound eyes. The sofa and the chairs 
were huge ; the deep window-hangings were talking 
together in a rustling, mocking way ; while the bed in 
its black recess seemed so very long and broad and 
high for one person, that Ralph sat down at the stone 
table, too lonely or too haunted to sleep. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


io 5 


Would not even this old grave be made merry with 
sunlight, if little Suzette were here ? 

He opened the book of familiar French phrases, and 
began to copy some of them. He worked feverishly, 
determinedly, for quite a time. Then he read the list 
he had made, half aloud. It was this ; 

“ Good-morning, my pretty one !” 

“ Will you walk with me ?” 

“ May I have your company to dinner ?” 

“ What is your name ?” 

“ I dare say you laugh at my pronunciation.’’ 

“ I am lonely in Paris.” 

“ Are you ?” 

‘‘You ought to see my chambers.” 

‘‘ Let me buy you a bracelet !” 

“ I love you !” 

Ralph’s voice stopped suddenly. There were deep 
echoes in the great room, which made him thrill and 
shudder. How still and terrible were the silence and 
loneliness ! 

A pang, half of guilt, half of fear, went keenly to his 
heart. It seemed to him that his mother was standing 
by his shoulder, pointing with her thin, tremulous fin- 
gers to the writing beneath him, and saying : 

” My boy, what does this mean ?” 

He held it in the candle-flame, and thought he felt 
better when it was burned ; but he could not burn all 
those thoughts of which the paper was only a copy. 


io 6 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


PART II. 

POSSESSION. 

If the cremery had seemed lonely by gaslight, what 
must Ralph Flare have said of it next morning, as he 
sat in his old place and watched the ouvriers at break- 
fast ? They came in, one by one, with their baton of 
brown bread, and called for two sous’ worth of coffee 
and milk. The men wore blouses of blue and white, 
and jested after the Gallic code with the sewing-girls. 
This bread and coffee, and a pear which they should 
eat at noon, would give them strength to labor till 
nightfall brought its frugal repast. Yet they were 
happy as crickets, and a great deal more noisy. 

Here is little Suzette, smiling and skipping, and 
driving her glances straight into Ralph Flare’s heart. 

“ Good-day, sir,” she cries, and takes a chair close 
by him, after the manner of a sparrow alighting. She 
smooths back her pure wristbands, disclosing the grace 
of the arm, and as she laughs in Ralph’s face lie knows 
what she is saying to herself ; it is more doubtful that 
he loves her than that she knows it. 

“ Peut-etre, monsieur, vous-avez besoin des gants ?" 

She gave him the card of her boutique , and laughed 
like a sunbeam playing on a rivulet, and went out sing- 
ing like the witch that she was. 

“ I don’t want gloves,” said Ralph Flare ; “I won’t 
go to her shop.” 

But he asked Pere George the direction, notwith- 
standing ; and though his conscience seemed to be 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


107 

blocking up the way — a tangible, visible, provoking 
conscience — he put his feet upon it and shut his lips, 
and found the place. 

Ralph Flare has often remarked since — for he is 
quite an artist now — that of all scenes in art or nature 
that boutique was to him the rarest. He has tried to 
put it into color — the miniature counter, the show-case, 
the background of boxes, each with a button looking 
mischievously at him, or a glove shaking its forefinger, 
or a shapely pair of hose making him blush, and the 
daintiest child in the world, flushing and flirting and 
gossiping before him ; but the sketch recalls matters 
which he would forget, his hands lose command, some- 
thing makes his eye very dim, and he lays aside his 
implements, and takes a long walk, and wears a sober 
face all that day. 

We may all follow up the sequence of a young man’s 
thoughts in doing a strange wrong for the first time. If 
Ralph’s passions of themselves could not mislead him, 
there were not lacking arguments and advisers to teach 
him that this was no offence, or that the usage war- 
ranted the sin. He became acquainted, through Terra- 
pin, with dozens of his countrymen ; the youngest and 
the oldest and the most estimable had their open at- 
tachments. So far as he could remark, the married 
and the unmarried tradesmen’s wives in Paris were 
nearly equal in consideration. How could he become 
perfect in the language without some such incentive 
and associate ? 

His income was not considerable, but they told him 
that to double his expenses was certain economy. He 
was very lonely, and he loved company. His age was 


io8 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


that at which the affections and the instincts alike impel 
the man to know more of woman — the processes of 
her mind, her capacities, her emotions, the idiosyn- 
crasies which divided her from his own sex. 

Hitherto he had been chaste, though once when he 
had confessed it to Terrapin, that incredulous person 
said something about the marines, and repeated it as a 
good joke ; he felt, indeed, that he was not entirely 
manly. He had half a doubt that he was worthy to 
walk with men, else why had not his desires, like 
theirs, been stronger than his virtue ; and had not the 
very feebleness of desire proved also a feebleness of 
power ? But, more than all, he had a weakness for 
Suzette. 

There was old Terrapin, with bonnets and dresses 
in his wardrobe, and a sewing-basket on his mantel, 
and with his own huge boots outside the door a pair of 
tapering gaiters, and in his easy-chair a little being to 
sing and chatter and mix his punch and make his 
cigarettes. Ah ! how much more entrancing would be 
Ralph’s chamber with Suzette to garnish it ! He would 
make a thousand studies of her face she should be 
his model, his professor, his divinity ! What was gross 
in her he would refine ; what dark he would make 
known. They would walk together by the river-side, 
into the parks, into the open country. He would know 
no regrets for the friends across the sea. Europe 
would become beautiful to him, and his art would find 
inspiration from so much loveliness. No indissoluble 
tie would bind them, to make kindness a duty and love 
necessity. No social tyranny should prescribe where 
he should visit, and where she should not. The hues 


MARRIED ABROAD . 


109 

of the picture deepened and brightened as he imagined 
it. He was resolved to do this thing, though a phan- 
tom should come to his bedside every night, and every 
shadow be his accusation. 

He committed to memory some phrases of French ; 
Terrapin was his interpreter, and they went together — 
those three and a sober cocker — to the Bois de Bou- 
logne. Terrapin stated to Suzette in a shockingly in- 
formal way that Ralph loved her and would give her a 
beautiful chamber and relieve her from the drudgery of 
the glove-shop. 

They were passing down the broad, gravelled drive, 
with the foliage above them edged with moonlight, the 
mock cataract singing musically below, and the cocker, 
half asleep, nodding and slashing his horses. And 
while Terrapin turned his head and made himself in- 
visible in cigar-smoke, Ralph folded Suzette to his 
breast, and kissed her once so demonstratively that the 
cocker awoke with a spring and nearly fell off the box, 
but was quite too much of a cocker to turn and investi- 
gate the matter. 

That was the ceremony, and that night the nuptials. 
Few young couples make a better commencement. She 
gave him a list of her debts, and he paid them. They 
removed from Ralph’s dim quarters to a cheap and 
cheerful chamber upon the new Boulevard. It was on 
‘the fifth floor ; the room was just adapted for so little a 
Icouple. Superficially observed, the furniture resolved 
itself into an enormous clock and a monstrously fine 
mirror ; but after a while you might remark four small 
chairs and a great one, a bureau and a wardrobe, a 
sofa and a canopied bed ; and just without the two 


I IO 


MARRIED ABROAD . 


gorgeously curtained windows lay a cunning balcony, 
where they could sit of evenings, with the old ruin of 
the Hotel Cluny beneath them, the towers of Notre 
Dame in the middle ground, and at the horizon the 
beautifully wooded hill of Pere la Chaise. 

Suzette had tristful eyes when they rested upon this 
cemetery. Her baby lay there, without a stone — not 
without a flower. 

“ Pauvre petite Jules!" she used to say, nestling 
close to Ralph, and for a little while they would not 
speak nor move, but the smoke of his cigar made a 
charmed circle around them, and the stars came out 
above, and the panorama of the great Boulevard moved 
on at their feet. 

Their first difficulties were financial, of course. Su- 
zette would have liked a silken robe, a new bonnet, a 
paletot, gloves and concomitants unlimited. She de- 
lighted to walk upon the Boulevard, the Rue Rivoli, and 
into the Palais Royal, looking into the shop-windows 
and selecting what she would buy when Ralph’s remit- 
tances came. Her hospitality when his friends visited 
him did less honor to her purse than to her heart. She 
certainly made excellent punches ; Terrapin thought 
her cigarettes unrivalled ; she was fond of cutting a 
fruit-pie, and was quite a connoisseur with wines. Ralph 
did not wonder at her tidiness when the laundry bills 
were presented, but doubted that the coiffeur beautified 
her hair ; and one day, when a cool gentleman in civil 
uniform knocked at the door, and insisted upon the 
immediate payment of a bill for fifty francs, he lost his 
temper and said bad words. What could be done ? 
Suzette was sobbing ; Ralph detested “ scenes he 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


HI 


threatened to leave the hotel and Paris, and frightened 
her very much — and paid the money. 

“ You said, Suzette, that you had rendered a full 
account of all your indebtedness. * You told me a lie !” 

“ Poor boy,” she replied, “ this debt was so old that 
1 never expected to hear of it.” 

“ Have you any more — old or otherwise ?” 

Suzette said demurely that she did not owe a sou in 
the world, but was able to recall thirty francs in the 
course of the afternoon, and assured him, truly, that 
this was the last. 

Still, she lacked economy. They went to the same 
cremery , but her meals cost one half more than his. 
She never objected to a ride in a voiture ; she liked to 
go to the balls, but walked very soberly upon his arm, 
recognizing nobody, and exacting the same behavior 
from Ralph. Let him look at an unusually pretty girl, 
through a shop-window, upon his peril ! If a letter 
came for him signed Lizzie, or Annie, or Mary, she 
took the dictionary and tried to interpret it, and in the 
end called him a vilain and wept. 

Toward the letters signed “ Lizzie” she conceived 
a deep antipathy. With a woman’s instinct she dis- 
cerned that “ Lizzie” was more to Ralph than any 
other correspondent. A single letter satisfied her of 
this ; and when he was reading it, for the second time, 
she snatched it from his hand and flung it fiercely upon 
the floor. Ralph’s eyes blazed menace and her own 
cowered. 

“ Take up that letter, Suzette !” 

“ I won’t !” 

” Take it up, I say ! I command ! instantly !” He 


1 1 2 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


had risen to his feet, and was the master now. She 
stooped, with pale jealousy lying whitely in her tem- 
ples, and gave it to him meekly, and sat down very 
stricken and desolate'. There was one whom he loved 
better than her — she felt it bitterly — a love more re- j 
spectful, more profound — a woman, perhaps, whom he 1 
meant to make his wife some day, when she should be 
only a shameful memory ! 

It may have been the reproach of this infidelity, or 
the thought of his home, or the infatuation of his pres- 
ent guileful attachment, which kept Ralph Flare from 
labor. 

There was the great Louvre, filled with the riches of 
the old masters, and the galleries of the Luxembourg 
with the gems of the French school, so marvellous in 
color and so superb in composition, and the mighty 
museum of Versailles, with its miles of battle pictures 
— yet the third month of his tenure in Paris was hasten- 
ing by, and he had not made one copy. 

Suzette was a bad model. She posed twice, but 
changed her position, and yawned, and said it was 
ridiculous. He had never made more than a crayon 
portrait of her. He found, too, that five hundred 
francs a month barely sufficed to keep them, and 
once, in the interval of a remittance, they were in dan- 
ger of hunger. Yet Suzette plied her needle bravely, 
and was never so proud as when she had spread the 
dinner she had earned. In acknowledgment of this 
fidelity Ralph took her to a grand magasin , where they ' 
examined the goods gravely, as married folks do, con- 
sulting each other, and trying to seem very sage and 
anxious. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


1 13 

There probably was never such a bonnet as Suzette’s 
in the world. It was black, and full of white roses, and 
floating a defiant ostrich-plume, and tied with broad 
red ribbons, whereby she could be recognized from one 
end of the Luxembourg gardens to the other. 

The paletot was clever in like manner ; she made the 
dress herself, and its fit was perfection, showing her 
plump little figure all the plumper, while its black color 
set off the whiteness of her simple collar, and with 
those magic gaiters, Ralph’s gift also, he used to sit in 
the big chair, peering at her, and in a quandary as to 
whether he had ever been so happy before, or ever so 
disquieted. 

“ Now, my little woman,” said Ralph, “ I have re- 
deemed my promises ; you have a chamber, and gar- 
ments, and subsistence — more than any of your friends 
* — and I am with you always ; few wives live so pleas- 
antly ; but there is one thing which you must do.” 

Suzette, sitting upon his knee, protested that he could 
not command any impossible thing which she would 
not undertake. 

” You must work a little ; we are both idle, and if 
we continue so, may have ennui and may quarrel. 
After three days I will not pay for your breakfasts, 
and every day in which you do not breakfast with me, 
paying for yourself, I will give you no dinner. Re- 
member it, Suzette, for I am in earnest.” 

Her color fell a little at this, for she had no love for 
the needle. It was merrier in the boutique to chat 
with customers, yet she started fairly, and for a week 
earned a franc a day. The eighth day came ; she had 
no money. Ralph put on his hat and went down the 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


114 

Rite L' ficole de Medecin without her ; but his breakfast 
was unpalatable, indigestible. Five o’clock came 
round ; she was sitting at the window, perturbedly 
waiting to see how he would act. 

It wrung his heart to think that she was hungry, but 
he tried to be very firm. 

“ I am going to dinner, Suzette ! I keep my word, 
you see.” 

“ It is well, Ralph.” 

That night they said little to each other. The dove- 
cote was quite cold, for the autumn days were running 
out, and they lighted a hearth fire. Suzette made pre- 
tence of reading. She had an impenitent look ; for 
she conceived that she had been cruelly treated, and 
would not be soothed nor kissed. Ralph smoked, and 
said over some old rhymes, and, finally rising, put on 
his cloak. 

“ I am going out, Suzette ; you don’t make my 
room cheerful.” 

‘ ‘ Bien !' ’ 

He walked very slowly and heavily down the stairs, 
to convince her that he was really going or hoping to 
be recalled, but she did not speak. He saw the light 
burning from his windows as he looked up from below. 
He was regretful and angry. At Terrapin’s room he 
drank much raw brandy and sang a song. He even 
called the astute Terrapin a humbug, and toward mid- 
night grew quarrelsome. They escorted him to his 
hotel door ; the light was still burning in his room. 
He was sober and repentant when he had ascended the 
long stairs, though he counterfeited profound drunken- 
ness when he stood before her. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


IJ 5 

She had been weeping, and in her white night- 
habit, with her dark hair falling loosely upon her 
shoulders, she was very lovely. The clock struck one 
as they looked at each other. She fell upon his neck 
and removed his garments, and wrapped him away be- 
tween the coverlets ; and he watched her for a long 
time in the flickering light till a deep sleep fell upon 
him, so that he could, not feel how closely he was 
clasped in her arms. 


PART III. 

CONSCIENCE. 

Lest it has not been made clear in these paragraphs 
whether Suzette was a good or a wicked being, we may 
give the matured and recent judgment of Ralph Flare 
himself. Put to the test of religion, or even of re- 
spectability, this intimacy was baneful. A wild young 
man had broken his honor for the companionship of a 
poor, errant girl. She was poor, but she hated to 
work ; she had no regard for his money ; she did not 
share his ambition. Making against her a case thus 
clear and certain, Ralph Flare entered for Suzette the 
plea of not wicked, and this was his defence ! 

She was educated in France. Particular sins lose 
their shame in some countries. Woman in France had 
not the high mission and respect which she fulfilled in 
his own land. Suzette was one of many children. 
Her father was the cultivator of a few acres in Nor- 
mandy. Her mother died as the infant was ushered 
into the world. To her father and brothers she was of 
an unprofitable sex, and her sisters disliked her because 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


ii 6 


she was handsomer than they. Her childhood was 
cheerless enough, for she had quick instincts, and her 
education availed only to teach her how grand was the 
world, and how confined her life. She left her home 
by stealth, in the night, and alone. In the city of 
Cherbourg she found occupation. She dwelt with 
strangers ; she was lonely ; her poverty and her 
beauty were her sorrows. She was a girl only till her 
fifteenth year. 

The young mother has but one city of refuge — 
Paris. Without friends she passed the bitterness of 
reminiscence. Through the poverty of skill or suste- 
nance she lost her boy, and the great city lay all before 
her where to choose. Luckily, in France every avenue 
to struggle was not closed to her sisterhood ; with us 
such gather only the wages of sin. It was not there an 
irreparable disgrace to have fallen. For a full year she 
lived purely, industriously, lonely ; what adventures 
ensued Ralph knew imperfectly. She met, he believed 
that she loved him. It was not probable, of course, 
that she came out of the wrestle unscathed. She de- 
ceived in little things, but he knew when to trust her. 
She was quick-tempered and impatient of control, but 
he understood her, and their quarrels were harbingers 
of their most happy seasons. She was generous, affec- 
tionate, artless. He did not know among the similar 
attachments of his friends any creature so pliable, so 
true, so beautiful. 

It was upon her acquaintances that Ralph placed the 
blame when she erred. Fanchette was one of these — 
the dame of a student from Bretagne, a worldly, plot- 
ting, masculine woman — the only one whom he per- 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


117 

mitted to 'visit her. It was Fanchette who loaned 
her money when she was indolent, and who prompted 
her to ask favors beyond his means. 

Toward the end of every month Ralph’s money ran 
out, and then he was petulant and often *upbraided her. 
Those were the only times when he essayed to study, 
and he would not walk with her of evenings, so desti- 
tute. Then Fanchette amused her: “Sew in my 
room,” she would say ; “ Ralph will come for you at 
eight o’clock.” But Ralph never went, and Fanchette 
poisoned his little girl’s mind. 

“When will you leave Paris, baby?” said Suzette 
one evening, as she returned trom her friend’s and 
found him sitting moodily by the fire. 

“ Very soon,” he replied crisply ; “ that is, if ever I 
have money or resolution enough to start.” 

“ Won’t you take me with you, little one ?” 

“ No i” 

“ You don’t love me any more !” 

“ Pish !” 

“ Kiss me, my boy !” 

“ Oh, go away, you bother me — you always bother 
me when my money is low. Haven’t I told you about 
it before ?” 

But the next morning as Suzette made her toilet, 
older and more silently, he felt repentant, and called 
her to him, and they talked a long while of nothing- 
nesses. He had a cruel way of playing with her feelings. 

“ Suzette,” he would say. “ would you like me to 
take you to my country and live with you forever ?” 

“ Very much, my child !” 

“ My father has a beautiful farm, which he means to 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


1 18 

give to me. There is a grand old house upon it, and 
from the high porch you can see the blue bay speckled 
with sails. The orchards are filled with apples and 
pears. You must walk an hour to get around the corn- 
fields, and there is a picnic ground in the beech-woods? 
where we might entertain our friends. I have many 
friends. How jolly you would look in my big rocking- 
chair, before the fireplace blazing with logs, and with 
your lap full of chestnuts, telling me of Paris life !” 

She was drinking it all in, and the blood was ripe in 
her cheeks. 

“ Think, little one,” he said, “ of passing our days 
there, you and I ! I have made you my wife, for ex- 
ample ; I paint great pictures ; you are proud of me ; 
everybody respects you ; you have your saddle-horse 
and your tea-parties ; you learn to be ashamed of what 
you were ; you are anxious to be better — not in peo- 
ple’s eyes only, but in mine, in your own. To do good 
deeds ; to sit in the church hearing good counsel ; to be 
patted upon the forehead by my father — his daughter ! 
— and to call my brother your brother also. Thus 
honored, contented, good, your hairs turn gray with 
mine. We walk along hand in hand so evenly that we 
do not perceive how old we are growing. We may for- 
get everything but our love ; that remains when we are 
gone — a part of our children’s inheritance.” 

He spoke excellent French now ; to her it was elo- 
quence. Her arms were around his neck. He could 
feel her heart beating. He had expressed what she 
scarcely dared to conceive — all her holiest, profoundest 
hopes, her longing for what she had never been, for 
what she believed she would try to be worthy of. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


119 

“Oh, my baby,” she cried, half in tears, “you 
make me think ! I have never thought much or often ; 
I wish I was a scholar, as you are, to tell you how, 
since we have dwelt together, something like that has 
come to me in a dream. Perhaps it is because you 
talk to me so that I love you so greatly. Nobody ever 
spoke to me so before. That is why I am angry when 
your proud friend Lizzie writes to you. All that good 
fortune is for her ; you are to quit Paris and me. My 
name will be unworthy to be mentioned to her. How 
shall I be in this bad city, growing old ; yet I would 
try so earnestly to improve and be grateful !” 

“ Would you, truly, sweetheart ?” 

She only sobbed and waited ; he coughed in a dry 
way and unclasped her hands. 

“I pity you, poor Suzette,” he said, “but it is 
quite impossible for us to be more to each other. My 
people would never speak to me if I behaved so 
absurdly. Go to bed now, and stop crying ; good- 
night.” 

She staggered up, so crushed and bowed and hag- 
gard that his conscience smote him. He could not 
have done a greater cruelty to one like her — teaching 
her to hope, then to despair. The next day, and the 
next, she worked at Fanchette’s. His remittance did 
not come ; he was out of temper, and said in jest that 
he would set out for Italy within a week. There was 
a pale decision in her countenance the fourth morning. 
She put on her gray robe and a little cap which she 
had made. He did not offer to kiss her, and she did 
not beseech it. He saw her no more until nine 
o’clock, when she came in with Fanchetle, and her 


120 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


cheeks were, flushed as with wine. This made him 
more angry. He said nothing to either of them and 
went to sleep silently. 

The fifth day she returned as before. He was sitting 
up by the fireplace ; his rent was due ; he was quite 
cast down, and said :: 

“ Dear, when my purse was full you never went 
away two whole days, leaving me alone.” 

“You are to leave me, Ralph, forever !” But she 
was touched, and in the morning said that she would 
come back at midday. Still no remittance. He felt 
like a bear. Twelve o’clock came— Suzette did not 
appear, dt drifted on to one ; he listened vainly for 
her feet upon the stairs. At two he sat at the window 
watching ; she entered at three, half mild, half timor- 
ous, and gave him a paper of sugar plums. 

“ Where did those come from ?” he asked, with a 
scowl. 

” Fanchette gave them to me.” 

“ I don’t believe it ; there is kirsch wasser on your 
lips ; you have been drinking.” 

She drew her handkerchief from her pocket ; a little 
box, gilt-edged, came out with it, and rolled into the 
middle of the floor. Suzette leaped for it with a quick 
pallor ; he wrenched it from her hands after a fierce 
struggle, and delving into the soft cotton with which it 
was packed, brought out sleeve-buttons of gold and a 
pearl breastpin. They were new and glittering, and 
they flashed a burning suspicion into his heart. He 
forced her unresisting into a chair, and flung them 
far out of the window, over the house-roofs. Then he 
sat down a moment to gain breath, and marked her 


MARRIED ABROAD . 


1 2 I 


with eyes in which she saw that she was already tried 
and sentenced. 

“ Who gave you those things, Suzette ?” he asked 
in a forced, strange monotone. 

“ My ancient patronne." 

“ What’s her name ?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Where does she live ?” 

“ I shan’t tell you.” 

- He held her wrist tightly and pressed her back till 
her eyes were compelled to mark his white, pinched 
lips and altogether bloodless temples. His hand 
tightened upon her ; his full, boyish figure straightened 
and heightened beyond nature ; his regard was terri- 
ble. A terrible fear and silence fell around about 
them. 

‘‘These are the gifts of a man,” he whispered; 
“ you do not know it better than I. I shall walk out 
for one hour ; at the end of that time there must not be 
even a ribbon of yours in this chamber.” 

PART IV. 

REMORSE. 

He gave the same order to the proprietor as he 
passed down-stairs, and hurried at a crazy pace across 
the Pont des Arts to the rooms of Terrapin. That 
philosopher was playing whist with his friends, and 
gave as his opinion that Ralph was “ spooney.” 

Ralph drank much, talked much, chafed more. 
Somebody advised him to travel, but he felt that Eu- 
rope had nothing to show him like that which lie 


122 


MARRIED ABROAD . 


had lost. He told Madame George the story at the 

cremery. 

“ Ah, monsieur,” she said, “ that is the way with 
all love in Paris.” 

He played “ ramps” with the French, but the game 
impressed him as stupid, and he tried to quarrel with 
Boetia, who was too polite to be vexed. He drank 
pure cognac, to the astonishment of the Gauls, but it 
had no visible effect upon him, and Pere George held 
up his hands as he went away, saying : “ Behold these 
Americans ! they do everything with a fever ; brandy 
affects them no more than water.” 

The room in the fifth story was very cold now. He 
tried to read in bed, but the novel had no meaning in 
it. He walked up and down the balcony in the No- 
vember night, where he had often explained the mo- 
tions of the stars to her. They seemed to miss her 
now, and peeped inquisitively. He looked into the 
bureau and wardrobe, half ashamed of the hope that 
she had left some souvenir. There was not even a let- 
ter. She had torn a leaf, on which she had written her 
name, out of his diary. The sketches he had made of 
her were gone ; if she had only taken her remembrance 
out of his heart, it would have been well. Then he 
reasoned with himself, sensibly and consistently. It 
was a bad passion at first. How would it have shamed 
his father and mother had they heard of it ! Its con- 
tinuance was even more pernicious, making him profli- 
gate and idle ; introducing him to light pleasures and 
companies ; enfeebling him, morally and physically ; 
diverting him from the beautiful arts ; weakening his 
parental love ; divorcing him from grand themes and 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


123 


thoughts. He could never marry this woman. Their 
heart-strings must have been wrung by some final part- 
ing ; and now that she had been proved untrue, was it 
not most unmanly that he should permit her to stand 
even in the threshold of his mind ? It was a good rid- 
dance, he said, pacing the floor in the firelight ; but 
just then he glanced into the great mirror, and stood 
fixed to mark the pallor of his face. Say what he 
might, laugh as he did, with a hollow sound, that 
absent girl had stirred the very fountains of his feelings. 
Not learned, not beautiful, not anything to anybody 
but him — there was yet the difference between her love 
and her deceit, which made him content or wretched. 

He felt this so keenly that he lifted his voice and 
cursed — himself, her, society, mankind. Then he cried 
like a child, and called himself a calf, and laughed 
bitterly, and cried again. 

There was no sleep for him that night. He drank 
brandy again in the morning, and walked to the 
banker’s. His remittance awaited him, and he came 
out of the Rue de la Paix with thirty gold napoleons 
in his pocket. 

He met all the Americans at breakfast at Trappe’s 
in the Palais Royal, and strolling to the morgue with 
a part of them, kept on to Vincennes, and spent a 
wretched day in the forest. At the Place de la Bastille, 
returning, he got into a cabriolet alone and searched 
ineffectually along the Rue Rivoli for a companion 
who would ride with him. “ Go through the Rue de 
Beaux Arts !” he said, as they crossed Pont Neuf. 
This is a quiet street in the Latin Quarter filled with 
cheap pensions , in one of which dwelt Fanchette. His 


124 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


heart was wedged in his throat as he saw at the win- 
dow little Suzette sewing. She wore one of the dresses 
he had given her. Her face was old and piteous ; she 
was red-eyed and worked wearily, looking into the 
street like one on a rainy day. 

When she saw him, he thought, by her start and 
flush, that she was going to fall from the chair ; but 
then she looked with a dim, absent manner into his 
face, like one who essays to remember something that 
was very dear but is now quite strange. He was 
pleased to think that she was miserable, and would have 
given much to have found her begging bread, as she 
did that night of him. 

He had ridden by on purpose to show that he had 
money, and she sent him by Terrapin’s word a peti- 
tion for a few francs to buy her a chamber. Fanchette’s 
friend had come home from the country, and it would 
not do for her to occupy their single bedroom ; but 
Ralph made reply by deputy, to the effect that the 
donor of the jewelry would, he supposed, give her a 
room. It was a weary week ensuing ; he drank spirits 
all the time, and made love to an English governess in 
the Tuileries garden, and when Sunday came, with a 
rainy, windy, dismal evening, he went with Terrapin 
and Co. to the Closerie des Lilas. 

This is the great ball of the Latin Quarter. It 
stands near the barriers upon the Boulevard, and is 
haunted with students and grisettes. Commonly it 
was thronged with waltzers, and the scene on gala 
nights, when all the lamps were aflame, and the music 
drowned out by the thunder of the dance, was a com- 
promise between Paradise and Pandemonium. To- 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


125 


night there was a beggarly array of folk ; the multi- 
tude of gar gons contemplated each other’s white aprons, 
and old Bullier, the proprietor, staggering under his 
huge hat, exhibited a desire to be taken out and in- 
terred. The wild-eyed young man with flying, carroty 
locks, who stood in the set directly under the orchestra, 
at that part of the floor called “ the kitchen, ” was 
flinging up his legs without any perceptible enjoyment, 
and the policemen in helmets, and cuirassiers, who had 
hard work to keep order in general, looked like lay fig- 
ures now, and strolled off into the embowered and 
sloppy gardens. There were not two hundred folk 
under the roofs. Ralph had come here with the unac- 
knowledged thought of meeting Suzette, and he walked 
around with his cigar, leaning upon Terrapin’s arm 
and making himself disagreeable. 

Suddenly he came before her. She seemed to have 
arisen from the earth. She looked so weak and hag- 
gard that he was impelled to speak to her ; but he was 
obdurate and hard-hearted. He could have filled her 
cup of bitterness and watched her drink it to the dregs, 
and would have been relentless if she was kneeling at 
his feet. 

“ Flare, what makes you tremble so?” said Terra- 
pin ; ‘‘are you cold ? Confound it, man, you are sick ! 
Sit here in the draft and take some cognac.” 

“ No,” answered Ralph, “I am all right again. 
You see my girl there ? (Don’t look at her !) You 
know some of these girls, old fellow ? I mean to treat 
two of them to a bottle of champagne. She will see it. 
I mean for her to do so. Who are these passing ? 
Come with me.” 


126 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


He walked by Suzette and her friend as if they had 
been invisible, and addressed those whom he pursued 
with such energy that they shrank back. He made 
one of them take his arm, and hurried here and there, 
saying honeyed words all the time, by which she was 
affrighted ; but every smile, false as it was, fell into 
Suzette’s heart. 

Weary, wan, wretched, she kept them ever in view, 
crossing his path now and then, in the vain thought 
that she might have one word from him, though it were 
a curse. He took his new friends into an alcove. 
She saw the wine burst from the bottle, and heard the 
clink of the glasses as they drank good health. She 
did not know that all his laughter was feigned, that 
his happiness was delirium, that his vows were lies. 
She did not believe Ralph Flare so base as to put 
his foot upon her, whom he had already stricken 
down. 

And he — he was all self, all stone ! — he laid no 
offence at his own door. He did not ask if her infi- 
delity was real or if it had no warrant in his own slight 
and goading. The poor, pale face went after him re- 
proachfully. Every painful footfall that she made 
was the patter of a blood-drop. Such unnatural ex- 
citement must have some termination. He quarrelled 
with a waiter. Old Bullier ordered a cuirassier to 
take him to the door ; he would have resisted, but Ter- 
rapin whispered : “ Don’t be foolish, Flare ; if you are 
put out it will be a triumph for the girl and only 
this conviction kept him calm. The cyprians whom 
he wooed followed him out ; he turned upon them bit- 
terly when he had crossed the threshold, and leaping 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


127 


into a carriage was driven to his hotel, where he slept 
unquietly till daybreak. 

See him, at dawn, in deep slumber ! his face is sal- 
low, his lips are dry, his chest heaves nervously as he 
breathes hard. It is a bad sleep ; it is the sleep of 
bad children, to whom the fiend comes, knowing that 
the older they grow the more surely are they his own. 

This is not, surely, the bashful young man who 
started at the phantom of his mother, and sinned re- 
luctantly. Aye ! but those who do wrong after much 
admonishment are wickeder than those who obey the 
first bad impulse. He is ten times more cast away 
who thinks and sins than he who only sins and does 
not think. 

Ralph Flare was one of your reasoning villains. His 
conscience was not a better nature rising up in the 
man, and saying ‘‘this is wrong.” It was not con- 
science at all ; it was only a fear. Far down as Su- 
zette might be, she never could have been unfeeling, 
unmerciful as he. It is a bad character to set in black 
and white, yet you might ask old Terrapin or any 
shrewd observer what manner of man was Ralph, and 
they would say, “ So-so-ish, a little sentimental, 
spooney likewise ; but a good fellow, a good fellow !” 
And more curious than all, Suzette said so too. 

Pie rose at daylight, and dressed and looked at himself 
in the glass. He felt that this would not do. His re- 
venge had turned upon himself. He had half a mind 
to send for Suzette, and forgive her, and plead with 
her to come back again. The door opened : she of 
whom he thought stood before him, more marked and 
meagre than he ; and the old tyranny mounted to his 


128 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


eyes as he looked upon her. He knew that she had 
come to be pardoned, to explain, and he determined 
that she should suffer to the quick. 

PART V. 

TYRANNY. 

If this history of Ralph Flare that we are writing 
was not a fiction, we might make Suzette give way at 
once under the burden of her grief, and rest upon a 
chair, and weep. On the contrary, she did just the 
opposite. She laughed. 

Human nathre is consistent only in its inconsisten- 
cies. She meant to break down in the end, but wished 
to intimidate him by a show of carelessness, so she first 
said quietly : “ Monsieur Ralph, I have come to see to 
my washing ; it went out with yours ; will you tell the 
proprietor to send it to me ?” 

“ Yes, madame.” 

“ May I sit down, sir ? It is a good way up-stairs, 
and I want to breathe a minute.” 

“ As you like, madame.” 

He was resting on the sofa ; she took a chair just 
opposite. There was a table between them, and for a 
little while she looked with a ghastly playfulness into 
his eyes, he regarding her coldly and darkly ; and then 
she laughed. It was a terrible laugh to come from a 
child’s lips. It was a woman’s pride, drowning at the 
bottom of her heart, and in its last struggle for preser- 
vation sending up these bubbles of sound. 

We talk of tragic scenes in common life ; this was 
one of them. The little room with its waxed, inlaid 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


129 


floor, the light falling bloodily in at the crimson cur- 
tains and throwing unreal shadows upon the spent fire, 
the disordered furniture, the unmade bed ; and there 
were the two actors, suffering in their little sphere what 
only seems more suffering in prisons and upon scaffolds, 
and playing with each other’s agonies as not more re- 
fined cruelty plays with racks and tortures. 

“ You are pleased, madame,” said Ralph. 

“ No, I am wondering what has changed you. There 
are black circles around your eyes ; you have not 
shaved ; the bones of your cheeks are sharp like your 
chin, and you are yellow and bent like a dry leaf.” 

“ I have had an excess of money lately. Being free 
to do as I like, I have done so.” 

She looked furtively around the room. “ Somebody 
has gone away from here this morning — is it true ?” 

He laughed suggestively. 

“ I saw you with two girls last night ; the company 
did you honor ; it was one of them, perhaps.” 

“ You guess shrewdly,” he replied. 

” This is her room now ; it may be she will object 
to see me here.” 

“ You are right,” said Ralph Flare, with mock cour- 
tesy, rising up. ” When you lived with me I permitted 
no one to visit me in your absence. My late friends 
will be vexed. You have finished the business which 
brought you here, and I must go to breakfast now.” 

Ralph was a good actor. Had he thought Suzette 
really meant to go, he would have fallen on his knees. 

“ Stop, Ralph, my boy,” she cried. “ I know that 
you do not love me ; I can’t see why I ever believed 
that you did. But let me sit with you a little while. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


130 


You drove me from you once. I know that you have 
found one to fill my place ; but, enfant , I love you. I 
want to take your head in my arms as I have done a 
hundred times, and hear you say one kind word before 
we part forever.” 

‘‘There was a time,” he said slowly, ‘‘when you 
did not need my embraces. I was eager to give them. 
I did not give you kindness only ; I gave you nourish- 
ment, shelter, clothing, money. You were unworthy 
and ungrateful. You are nothing tome now. Do not 
think to wheedle me back to be your fool again.” 

“ Oh ! for charity, my child, not for love — I am too 
wretched to hope that — for pity, let me sit by your side 
five minutes. I cannot put it into words why I beg it, 
but it is a little thing to grant. If one starved you, or 
had stolen from you, and asked it so earnestly, you 
would consent. I only want you to think less bitterly 
of me. You must needs have some hard thoughts. I 
have done wrong, my boy, but you do not know all the 
cause, and as what I mean to say cannot make place 
in your breast for me now, you will know that it is 
true, because it has no design. Oh ! Mon Diea ! 
Mon Dieu ! It is so hard to have but one deep love, 
and yet find that love the greatest sorrow of one’s life. 
It is so hard to have loved my boy so well, and to 
know that to the end of his days he hated me.” 

She said this with all the impetuosity of her race ; 
with utter abandonment of plan or effort, yet with a 
wild power of love and gesture which we know only 
upon the stage, but which in France is life, feeling, 
reality. 

She sat down and sobbed, raising her voice till it 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


rolled with a shrill music which made him quiver, 
through the parted curtain and into the turbulent street. 
There were troops passing beneath the balcony, and the 
clangor of drums and bugles climbed between the stone 
walls, as if to pour all its mockery into the little room. 

Ralph Flare hated to see a woman cry ; it pained 
him more than her ; so he lifted her in his arms and 
carried her to the sofa and placed her head upon his 
breast. Fora long while she sat in that strange luxury 
of grief, and she was fearful that he would send her 
away before her agitation could pass, and she might 
speak. His face wore an incredulous sneer as she 
spoke, though he knew it was absolute truth. She 
told him how wretched she had been, so wretched that 
even temptation respected her ; how she had never 
known the intensity of her passion for him till they 
were asunder ; how all previous attachments were as 
ice to fire compared to this ; and how the conscious- 
ness of its termination should make her desolate for- 
ever. 

‘ ‘ I looked upon you, ’ * she said, ‘ ‘ as one whom I had 
trained up. Since I have lost my little Jules I have 
needed something to care for. I taught you to speak 
my language as if you were a baby. You learned the 
coinage of the land, and how to walk through the city, 
and all customs and places, precisely as a child learns 
them from his mother. Alas ! you were wiser than I, 
and it made me sad to feel it. It was like the mother’s 
regret that her boy is getting above her, in mind, in 
stature, so that he shall be able to do without her. 
Yet with that fear there is a pride like mine, when I 
felt that you were clever. Ah ! Ralph, you loved to 


1 3 2 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


make me feel how weak and mean I was. You played 
with my poor heart, sick enough before, and little by 
little I felt your love gliding away from me, till at last 
you told me that it was gone. You said you should 
leave France, never to return — God forgive you if it 
was not true ! — and when you treated me worst, I was 
tempted to hear kind words from another. Fanchette’s 
friend has a rich cousin who admires me. He is to 
live in Paris many years. I never loved him, but I am 
poor, and many women marry only for a home. He 
offered that and more to me. I would not hear it. 
Oh ! if you had only said one tender word to me in 
those days of temptation. I begged you for it. When 
I was humblest at your feet you put your heel upon 
me most. 

“ One night when I had the greatest trouble of all 
he sat beside me and plied his suit, and was pleasanter, 
my boy, than you have ever been ; and then, rising, 
he placed that box of jewelry in my lap and ran 
away. I left it upon Fanchette’s mantel that night. 
She filled my head with false thoughts next day. I 
never meant while you were in Paris to do you any 
wrong ; but I put those jewels in my pocket, meaning 
to give them up again ; you found them, and I was 
made wretched.” 

Ralph made that dry, biting cough which he used 
to express unbelief. She only bent her head and wept 
silently. 

“ When all was gone, poor me ! I have found much 
sorrow in my little life, but we are light-hearted in 
France, and we live and laugh again. Perhaps you 
have made me more like one of your countrywomen. 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


133 


I do not know — only that I can never be happy any 
more. 

“ Since we have dwelt apart my tempter has been to 
see me every day. He has grand chambers which he 
will give me, and rich wardrobes, and a watch, and a 
voiture. It is a dazzling picture for one who toils, 
going all her days on foot, and lovely only to be de- 
ceived. But I hate that man now, because he has 
come between you and me, and I have slept upon my 
tears alone.” 

She melted again into a long, loud wail, and he pro- 
posed nervously that they should walk into the gardens 
near by. He said little, and that contemptuously, 
tossing his cane at the birds, much interested in a 
statue, delighted with the visitors beneath the maroon 
trees ; and she followed him here and there, very weak, 
for she had eaten no breakfast, and not so deceived 
but she knew that he labored to wound her. He asked 
her into a cafe, cavalierly, and was very careful to 
make display of his napoleons as he paid. He did not 
invite her, but she followed him to his hotel again, 
and here, as if with terrible ennui, he threw himself 
upon his bed and feigned to sleep, while she crouched 
at his table and wrote him a contrite letter. It was 
sweetly and simply worded, and asked that he should 
let her return to him for his few remaining days in 
Paris. If he could not grant so much, might she speak 
to him in the street ; come to see him sometimes, if 
only to be reviled ; love him, though she could not 
hope to be loved ? She gave him this note with her 
face turned away, and faltered the request that he 
would think ere he replied, and hurried to the balcony 


134 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


without, that she might not trouble him with the pres- 
ence of her sorrow. 

How the street beneath her, into which she looked, 
had changed since the nights when they talked together 
upon this balcony ! There was bright sunshine, but it 
fell leeringly, not laughingly, upon the columns of the 
Odean Theatre, upon the crowds on the Boulevard, 
upon the decrepit baths of Julian, upon the far heights 
of Belleville, upon her more cheerlessly than upon all. 

She listened timorously for his word of recall. She 
wondered if he were not writing a reply. Yes, that 
was his manner ; he was cold and sharp of speech, but 
he was an artist with his pen. She thought that her 
long patience had moved him. Perhaps she should be 
all forgiven. Aye ! they should dwell together a few 
days longer. It was a dismal thought that it must be 
for a few days, yet that would be some respite, and 
then they could part friends ; though her heart so 
clung to his that a parting should rend it from her, she 
wanted to live over their brief happiness again. 

“ Oh !” said Suzette, in the end, laying her cheek 
upon the cold iron of the balcony, “ I wish I had died 
at my father’s home of pining for something to love 
rather than to have loved thus truly, and have it ac- 
counted my shame. If I were married to this man I 
could not be his fonder wife ; but because I arifnot he 
despises me. All day I have crawled in the dust ; I 
have made myself cheap in his eyes. If I were prouder 
he might not love me more, but his respect would be 
something.” 

She rallied and took heart. Pride is the immortal 
part of woman. With a brighter eye she entered the 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


*35 


room. Her letter, blotted with tears, lay crumpled and 
torn upon the floor at his bedside, and he, with his 
face to the wall, was snoring sonorously. 

“ Ralph Flare,” cried Suzette, “ arise ! that letter 
is the last olive branch you shall ever see in my hand ; 
adieu /” 

He opened his eyes yawningly. Suzette, with trem- 
bling lips and nostrils, clasped the door-knob. It shut 
behind her with a shock. Her feet were quick upon 
the stairs ; he pursued her like one suddenly gone mad, 
and called her back with something between a moan 
and a howl. 

‘‘Do not go away, Suzette,” he cried ; ‘‘ I only 
jested. I meant this morning to search you out and 
beg you to come back. I would not lose you for 
France — for the world. Be not rash or retaliatory ! 
become not the companion of this Frenchman who has 
divided us. We will commence again. I have tested 
your fidelity. You shall have all the liberty that you 
need, everything that I have ; say to me, sweetheart, 
that you will stay !” 

For a moment her bright eyes were scintillant with 
wrath and indignation. He who had racked her all 
day for his pleasure was bound and prostrate now. 
Should she not do as much for her revenge ? 

“ I have no other friend now,” he pleaded ; “ my 
nights have been sleepless, solitary. In the days I have 
drunk deeply, squandered my money, tried all dissi- 
pations, and proved them disappointments. If you 
leave me I swear that I will plague myself and you.” 

“ Oh ! Ralph,” said Suzette, “ I do not wonder at 
the artfulness of women after this day’s lesson. Some- 


136 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


thing impels me to return your cruelty ; it is a bad im- 
pulse, and I shall disobey it. I thank God, my baby, 
that I cannot do as you have done to me. M 

She wept again for the last time, but he kissed her 
tears away, and wondered where the great shame lay, 
upon that child or upon him ? 

PART VI. 

DESERTION. 

When the last fresh passion was over, Suzette, 
whose face had grown purer and sadder, roused Ralph 
Flare to his more legitimate ambition. “ My child,” 
she said, “ if you will work in the gallery every day I 
will sew in one of the great magasans. ’ ’ 

To see that he commenced fairly, she went with him 
into the Louvre, and he selected a fine Rembrandt — 
an old man, bearded and scarred, massively character- 
ized, and clothed in magic light and shadow. 

As Ralph stood at his easel, meditating the master, 
Suzette now fluttered around him, now ran off to the 
far end of the long hall, where he could see her in 
miniature, the sweetest portrait in France. At last he 
was really absorbed, and she went into the city to ful- 
fil her promise. She was nimble of finger, and though 
the work distressed her at first, she thought of his ap- 
plause, and persevered. 

Their method was the marvel of the unimaginative 
Terrapin, who made some philosophic comments upon 
the “ spooney” socially considered, and cut their ac- 
quaintance. 

They breakfasted at the cremery at seven o’clock 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


*37 


with the ouvriers , and dined at one of Duvall’s bouillon 
establishments. Suzette found the work easier as she 
progressed. She was finally promoted to the place of 
coupeur y or cutter, and had the superintendence of a 
work-room, where she made four francs a day, and so 
paid all her expenses. At the end of the second month 
he took the money which he otherwise would have re- 
quired for board, and bought her a watch and chain at 
the Palais Royale. At the same time he put the fin- 
ishing touch to his picture, and when hung upon his 
wall, between their photographs, Suzette danced before 
it, and took half the credit upon herself. 

Foolish Suzette ! she did not know how that old 
man was her most dangerous rival. He had done what 
no beautiful woman in France could do — weakened her 
grasp upon Ralph Flare’s heart. For now Ralph’s old 
enthusiasm for his profession reasserted itself. It was 
his first and deepest love after all. 

“ My baby,” he said one night, “ there was a great 
artist named Raphael — and he had a little mistress, 
whom I don’t think a whit prettier than mine. She 
was called the Fornarina , just as you may be called 
the Coutouriere , and he painted her portrait in the 
characters of saints and of the Virgin. She will be re- 
membered a thousand years, because Raphael so loved 
and painted her. But he was not a great artist only 
because he loved the Fornarina. He had something 
that he loved better, and so have I.” 

“ One more beloved than Suzette ?” she cried. 

“ Yes ! it is art. I loved you more than my art be- 
fore ; but I am going back to my first love.” 

Suzette tossed her head and said that she could 


i3§ 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


never be jealous of a picture, and went her way with a 
simple faith and toiled ; and as she toiled the more, so 
grew her love the purer and her content the more 
equal. She was not the aerial thing she had been. 
Retaining her elasticity of spirit, she was less volatile* 
more silent, more careful, more anxious. 

It is wiser, not happier, to reach that estate called 
thought ; for now she asked herself very often how 
long this chapter of her life would last. Must the time 
come when he must leave her forever ? She thought 
it the bitterest of all to part as they had done before, 
with anger ; but any parting must be agony where she 
had loved so well. As he lay sleeping, he never knew 
what tears of midnight were plashing upon his face. 
He could not see how her little heart was bleeding as 
it throbbed. Yet she went right on, though sometimes 
the tears blinded her, till she could not see her needle ; 
but the consciousness that this love and labor had 
made her life more sanctified was, in some sort, com- 
pensation. 

One Sunday she rose before Ralph, and thinking 
that she was unobserved, stole out of the hotel and up 
the Boulevard. He followed her, suspiciously. She 
crossed the Place de la Sorbonne, turned the transept 
of the Pantheon, and entered the old church of St. 
Etienne du Mont. 

It was early mass. The tapers which have been 
burning five hundred years glistened upon the tomb of 
the holy St. Genevieve. Here and there old women 
and girls were kneeling in the chapels, whispering their 
sins into the ears of invisible priests. And beneath 
the delicate tracery of screen and staircase, and the 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


*39 


gloriously-painted windows, and the image of Jesus 
crucified looking down upon all, some groups of poor 
people were murmuring their prayers and making the 
sign of the cross. 

Ralph entered by a door in the choir. He saw Su- 
zette stand pallidly beside the holy water, and when 
she had touched it with the tips of her fingers, and 
made the usual rites, she staggered, as if in shame, to 
a remote chair, and kneeling down covered her face 
with her missal. Now and then the organ boomed 
out. The censers were swung aloft, dispensing their 
perfumes, and all the people made obeisance. Ralph 
did not know what it all meant. He only saw his lit- 
tle girl penitent and in prayer, and he knew that she 
was carrying her sin and his to the feet of the Eternal 
Mercy. 

He feigned sleep in the same way each Sunday suc- 
ceeding, and she disappeared as before. After a while 
she spoke of her family, and wondered if her father 
would forgive her. She would not have forgiven him 
three months ago, but -was quite humble now. 

She sent her photograph to the old man, and a let- 
ter came back, the first she had received for two years. 

She felt unwilling, also, to receive further gifts or 
support from Ralph. If I were his wife, she said, it 
might be well, but since it is not so, I must not be de- 
pendent. 

Foolish Suzette again ! She did not know that men 
love best where they most protect. The wife who 
comes with a dower may climb as high as her husband’s 
pocket, but seldom lies snugly at his heart. Her 
changed conduct did not draw him closer to her. He 


140 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


felt uneasy and unworthy. He missed the artfulness 
which had been so winning. He had jealousies no 
longer to keep his passion quick, for he could not 
doubt her devotion. There was nothing to lack in 
Suzette, and that was a fault. She had become mod- 
est, docile, truthful, grave. A noble man might have 
appreciated her the better. Ralph Flare was a repre- 
sentative man, and he did not. 

His friends in America thought his copy from Rem- 
brandt wonderful.. Their flattery made his ambition 
glow and flame. His mother, whose woman’s instinct 
divined the cause of his delay in Paris, sent him a 
pleading letter to go southward ; and thus reprimanded, 
praised, rewarded, what was he to do ? 

He resolved to leave France — and without Su- 
zette ! 

He had not courage to tell her that the separation 
was final. He spoke of an excursion merely, and took 
but a handful of baggage. She had doubts that were 
like deaths to her ; but she believed him, and after a 
feverish night went with him in the morning to the 
train. He was to write every day. 

Would she take money ? 

“ No.” 

But she might have unexpected wants — sickness, 
accident, charity ? 

“If so,” she said trustfully, “would not her boy 
come back ?” 

He had just time to buy his ticket and gain the plat- 
form. He folded her in his arms, and exchanged one 
long, sobbing kiss. It seemed to Ralph Flare that the 
sound of that kiss was like. a spell — the breaking of the 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


141 

pleasantest link in his life — the passing from sinfulness 
to a baser selfishness — the stamp and seal upon his bar- 
gain with ambition, whereby for the long future he 
was sold to the sorrow of avarice and the deceitfulness 
of fame. 

There was a sharp whistle from the locomotive — who 
invented that whistle to pierce so many bosoms at part- 
ing ? — the cars moved one by one till the last, in which 
he was seated, sprang forward with a jerk; and though 
she was quite blind, he saw her handkerchief waving 
till all had vanished, and he would have given the 
world to have shed one tear. 

He has gone on into the free country, and to-night 
he will sleep under the shadow of the mountains. 

She has turned back into the dark city, and she will 
not sleep at all in her far-up chamber. 

It is only one heart crushed, and thousands that de- 
serve more sympathy beat out every day. We only 
notice this one because it shall lie bleeding, and get no 
sympathy at all. 


PART VII. 

DISSOLVING VIEW'. 

That he might not meet with his own countrymen, 
Ralph halted at Milan, and in the great deserted gal- 
lery of the Brera went steadily to work. If, as it often 
happened, Suzette’s pale face got between hirn and the 
canvas, he mentioned his own name and said “ re- 
nown,” and took a turn in the remote corridor where 
3'oung Raphael’s Sposializo hung opposite that marvel 
of Guercino’s — poor Hagar and her boy Ishmael driven 


142 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


abroad. These adjuncts and the fiercer passion of self 
had their effect. 

He never wrote to Suzette, but sent secretly for his 
baggage, and was well pleased with the consciousness 
that he could forget her. After three months he set 
out for Florence and studied the masterpieces of An- 
drea del Sarto, and tried his hand at the Flora of Titian. 

He went into society somewhat, and was very much 
afraid his unworthy conduct in Paris might be bruited 
abroad. Indeed, he could hardly forgive himself the 
fondness he had known, and came to regard Suzette 
as a tolerably bad person, who had bewitched him. 
He burned all her letters, and a little lock of hair he 
had clipped while she was asleep once, and blotted the 
whole experience out of his diary. The next Sunday 
he went to hear the Rev. Mr. Hall preach, and felt 
quite consoled. 

The summer fell upon Val d’Arno like the upsetting 
of a Tuscan Scaldino , and Ralph Flare regretfully took 
his departure northward. All the world was going to 
Paris — why not he ? Was he afraid ? Certainly not ; 
it had been a great victory over temptation to stay 
away so long. He would carry out the triumph by 
braving a return. 

In accordance with his principles of economy, he 
took a third-class ticket at Basle. He could so make 
better studies of passengers ; for, somehow, your first- 
class people have not character faces. The only char- 
acter you get out of them is the character of wine they 
consume. 

He left the Alps behind him, and rolled all day 
through the prosaic plains of France, startling the pale 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


M3 


little towns, down whose treeless streets the sun shone, 
oh ! so drearily, and taking up boors and market-folks 
at every monastic station. There was a pretty young 
girl sitting beside Ralph in the afternoon, but he re- 
fused to talk to her, for he was schooling himself, and 
preferred to scan the features of an odd old couple 
who got in at Troyes. 

They were two old people of the country, and they 
sat together in the descending shadows of the day, 
quite like in garb and feature, their chins a little peak- 
ish, and the hairs of both turning gray. The man was 
commonplace, as he leaned upon a staff, and between 
their feet were paniers of purchases they had been 
making, which the woman regarded indifferently, as if 
her heart reached farther than her eyes, and met some 
soft departed scene which she would have none other 
see. 

“ She has a good face,” said Flare. “ I wish she 
would keep there a moment more. By George, she 
looks like somebody I have known.” * 

The old man nodded on his staff. The rumble of the 
carriages subdued to a lull all lesser talk or murmurs, 
and the sky afar off brought into sharp relief the two 
Gallic profiles, close together, as if they were used to 
reposing so ; yet in the language of their deepening 
lines lay the stories of lives very, very wide apart. 

“ The old girl’s face is soft,” said Ralph Flare. 
“ She has brightened many a bit of Belgian pike road, 
and the brown turban on her head is in clever contrast 
to the silver shimmer of her hairs. How anomalous 
are life and art ! How unconscious is this old lady of 
the narrow escape, she is making from perpetuation ! 


144 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


Doubtless she works afield beside that old Jacques 
Bonhomme, and drinks sour wine or Normandy cider 
on Sundays. That may be the best fate of Suzette, 
but it must be an amply dry reformation for any little 
grisette to contemplate. For such prodigals going 
home there is no fatted calf slain. No fathers see 
them afar off and run to place the ring upon their fin- 
gers. They renounce precarious gayety for persistent 
slavery. The keen wit of the student is exchanged for 
the pipe and mug and dull oath of the boor. I wish 
every such girl back again to so sallow a fate, and pity 
her when she gets there.” 

And so, with much unconscious sentimentality, and 
the two old market people silent before him, Ralph 
Flare’s eyes half closed also, and the lull of the wheels, 
the long lake streaks of the sedative skies, the coming 
of great shadows like compulsions to slumber, made 
his forehead fall and the world go up and down and 
darken. 

It was "the old woman who shook him from that 
repose ; she only touched him, but her touch was 
like a lost sense restored. He thrilled and sat stock 
still, with her withered blue hand on his arm, and 
heard the pinched lips say, unclosing with a sort of 
quiver : 

“ Baby !” 

He looked again, and seemed to himself to grow 
quite old as he looked, and he said, 

” Enfant perdu /” 

The turban kept its place, the peaked chin kept as 
peaked ; there seemed even more silver in the smooth 
hair, and the old serge gown drooped as brownly ; but 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


J 45 


the sweet old face grew soft as a widow’s looking at 
the only portrait she guards, and a tear, like a drop of 
water exhumed, ran to the tip of her nostril. 

“ Suzette !” he said, “ my early sin ; do you come 
back as well with the turning of my hairs ? Has the 
first passion a shadow long as forever ? Why "have we* 
met ?” 

“ Not of my seeking was this meeting, Ralph. Speak 
softly, for my husband sleeps, and he is old like thee 
and me. If my face is an accusation, let my lips be 
forgiveness. The love of you made my life dutiful ; 
the loss of you saddened my days, but it was the sad- 
ness of religion ! I sinned no more, and sought my 
father’s fields, and delayed, with my hand purified by 
his blessing, the residue of his sands of. life. I made 
my years good to my neighbors, the sick, the bereaved. 

I met the temptations of the young with a truer story 
than pleasure tells, and when I married it was with the 
prelude of my lost years related and forgiven. With 
children’s faces the earnestness and beauty of life re- 
turned ; for this, for more, for all, may your reward 
be bountiful !” 

There is no curse like the dream of old age. Ralph 
Flare felt, with the sudden whitening of each separate 
hair, the sudden remembrance of each separate folly ; 
and the moments of grief he had wrung from the little 
girl of the Quartier Latin revived like one’s mean acts 
seen through others’ eyes.. 

“ Pardon you, child, Suzette ?” he said ; “ to me you 
were more than I hoped, more than I wished. I asked 
your face only, and you gave me your heart. For the 
unfaithfulness, for the wrath, for the unmanliness, for 


146 


MARRIED ABROAD. 


the tyranny with which I treated you, my soul up- 
braids me.” 

“ How thankful am I,” she answered ; “ the terror 
to me was that you had learned in the Quartier lessons 
to make your after-life monotonous. I am happy.” 

Their hands met ; to his gray beard fell the smile 
upon her mouth ; they forget the Quartier Latin ; they 
felt no love but forgiveness, which is the tenderest of 
emotions. The whistle blew shrilly ; the train stopped ; 
Ralph Flare awoke from sleep ; but the old couple 
were gone. 

He went to Paris, and, contrary to his purpose, in- 
quired for her. She had been seen by none since his 
departure. He wrote to the Maire of her commune, 
and this was the reply : 

“ Ralph, Merci ! Pardonne! 

“ Suzette.” 

He felt no loss. He felt softened toward her only ; 
and he turned his back on the Quartier Latin with a 
man’s easy satisfaction that he could forget. 


THE PIGEON GIRL. 





THE PIGEON GIRL. 


On the sloping market-place, 

In the village of Compeigne, 
Every Saturday her face, 

Like a Sunday, comes again ; 
Daylight finds her in her seat, 

With her panier at her feet, 

Where her pigeons lie in pairs ; 
Like their plumage gray her gown. 
To her sabots drooping down ; 

And a kerchief, brightly brown. 
Binds her smooth, dark hairs. 

All the buyers knew her well, 

And, perforce, her face must see, 
As a holy Raphael 
Lures us in a gallery ; 

Round about the rustics gape, 
Drinking in her comely shape, 

And the housewives gently speak, 
When into her eyes they look, 

As within some holy book, 

And the gables, high and crook. 
Fling their sunshine on her cheek. 

In her hands two milk-white doves, 
Happy in her lap to lie. 

Softly murmur of their loves, 

Envied by the passers-by ; 


THE PIGEON GIRL. 


150 

One by one their flight they take, 

Bought and cherished for her sake, 
Leaving so reluctantly ; 

Till the shadows close approach, 

Fades the pageant, foot and coach. 

And the giants in the cloche 
Ring the noon for Picardie. 

Round the village see her glide. 

With a slender sunbeam’s pace ! 
Mirrored in the Oise’s tide, 

The gold-fish float upon her face ; 

All the soldiers touch their caps ; 

In the cafes quit their naps 

Garqon, guest, to wish her back ; 

And the fat old beadles smile 
As she kneels along the aisle, 

Like Pucelle in other while, 

In the dim church of Saint Jacques. 

Now she mounts her dappled ass — 

He well-pleased such friend to know — 
And right merrily they pass 
The armorial chateau ; 

Down the long, straight paths they tread 
Till the forest, overhead, 

Whispers low its leafy love ; 

In the archways’ green caress 
Rides the wondrous dryadess — 

Thrills the grass beneath her press. 

And the blue-eyed sky above. 

I have met her, o’er and o’er, 

As I strolled alone apart, 

By a lonely carrefour 

In the forest’s tangled heart. 


THE PIGEON GIRL 


J5 1 


Safe as any stag that bore 
Imprint of the Emperor ; 

In the copse that round her grew 
Tiptoe the straight saplings stood, 
Peeped the wild boar’s satyr brood. 

Like an arrow clove the wood 
The glad note of the cuckoo. 

How I wished myself her friend ! 

(So she wished that I were more) 
Jogging toward her journey’s end 
At Saint Jean au Bois before, 

Where her father’s acres fall 
Just without the abbey wall ; 

By the cool well loiteringly 
The shaggy Norman horses stray. 

In the thatch the pigeons play, 

And the forest round alway 
Folds the hamlet, like a sea. 

Far forgotten all the feud 

In my New World’s childhood haunts, 
If my childhood she renewed 
In this pleasant nook of France ; 
Might she make the blouse I wear, 
Welcome then her homely fare 
And her sensuous religion ! 

To the market we should ride. 

In the Mass kneel side by side. 

Might I warm, each eventide, 

In my nest, my pretty pigeon. 
































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THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 
































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THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 

A Tale of an Old Suburb. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE MURDER. 

Between the Delaware River and Girard Avenue, 
which is the market street of the future, and east of 
Frankfort Road, lies Kensington, a respectable old 
district of the Quaker City,- and occupying the same 
relation to it that Kensington in England does to Lon- 
don. Beyond both Kensingtons is a Richmond, but 
the English Richmond is a beauteous hill, with poeti- 
cal recollections of Pope and Thomson, while our 
Richmond is the coal district of Philadelphia, flat to 
the foot and dingy to the eye. 

Kensington, however, was once no faint miniature of 
the staid British suburb. The river bending to the 
eastward there conducts certain of the streets crookedly 
away from the rectangular Quaker demon who is ever 
seeking to square them. Along the water side, or 
near it, passes a sort of Quay Street, between ship- 
yards and fish-houses on the one side, and shops or 
small tenements on the other, and this street scarcely 
discloses the small monument on the site of the Treaty 


156 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Tree, where William Penn in person satisfied the 
momentary expectations of his Indian subjects. 

Nearly parallel to the water side street is another, 
wider and more aristocratic, and lined with many 
handsome dwellings of brick, or even brown-stone, 
where the successful shipbuilders, fishtakers, coal men, 
and professional classes have established themselves or 
their posterity. This street was once called Queen, 
afterward Richmond Street, and it is crossed by 
others, as Hanover, Marlborough, and Shackamaxon, 
which attest in their names the duration of royal and 
Indian traditions hereabout. Pleasant maple, some- 
times sycamore and willow trees shade these old 
streets, and they are kept as clean as any in this ever- 
mopped and rinsed metropolis, while the society, 
though disengaged from the great city, had its better 
and worser class, and was .fastidious about morals and 
behavior, and not disinclined to express its opinion. 

One winter day in a certain year Kensington had a 
real sensation. The Delaware was frozen from shore 
to shore, and one could walk on the ice from Smith’s 
to Treaty Island, and from Cooper’s Point to the 
mouth of the Cohocksink. On the second afternoon 
of the great freeze fires were built on the river, and 
crowds assembled'at certain smooth places to see great 
skaters like Colonel Page cut flourishes and show sly 
gallantry to the buxom housewives and grass widows 
of Kensington and the Jerseys. A few horses were 
driven on the ice, and hundreds of boys ran merrily 
with real sleighs crowded down with their friends. A 
fight or two was improvised, and unlicensed vendors 
set forth the bottle that inebriates. In the midst of 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


*57 


the afternoon gayety a small boy, kneeling down to 
buckle up to a farther hole the straps on his guttered 
skates, saw just at his toe something like human hair. 
The small boy rose to his feet and stamped with all 
his might around that object, not in any apprehension, 
but because small boys like to know ; and when the ice 
had been well broken, kneeling down and pulling it 
out in pieces with his mitten, the small boy felt some- 
thing cold and smooth, and then he poked his finger 
into a human eye. It was a dead man. No sooner 
had the urchin found this out than he bellowed out at 
the top of his voice, running and falling as he yelled : 
“ Murder ! Murder ! Murder !” 

From all parts of the ice, like flies chasing over a 
silver salver toward some sweet point of corruption, 
the hundreds and thousands swarmed at the news that a 
dead body had been found. When they arrived on the 
spot, spades, picks, and ice-hooks had been procured 
by those nearest shore, and the whole mystery brought 
from the depths of the river to the surface. 

There lay together on the ice two men, apparently 
several days in the water, and with the usual look of 
drowned people of good condition — glassy and of fixed 
expression, as if in the moment of death a consenting 
grimness had stolen into their countenances, neither 
composed nor terrified. 

The bodies had been already recognized when the 
main part of the crowd arrived. Kensington people, 
generally, knew them both. 

“It’s William Zane and his business partner, Sayler 
Rainey ! They own one of the marine railways at 
Kensington. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen 


158 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


them around for nearly a week, neighbor !” exclaimed 
an old man. 

“It’s a case of drowning, no doubt,” spoke up a 
little fellow who did a river business in old chains and 
junk. “ You see they had another ship-mending place 
on the island opposite Kinsington, and rowin’ their- 
selves over was upset and never missed !” 

“ Quare enough too !” added a third party, “for 
yisterday I had a talk with young Andrew Zane, this 
one’s son (touching the body with his foot), and An- 
drew said. — a little pale I thought he was — says he, 

‘ Pop’s about.' ” 

Here a little buzz of mystery — so grateful to crowds 
which have come far over slippery surface and expect 
much — undulated to the outward boundaries. As the 
people moved the ice cracked like a cannon shot, and 
they dispersed like blackbirds, to rally soon again. 

“ Here’s a doctor ! Now we’ll know about it ! 
He's here !” was exclaimed by several, as an impor- 
tant little man was pushed along, and the thickest 
crowd gave him passage. The little man borrowed a 
boy’s cap to kneel on, adjusted a sort of microscopic 
glass to his nose, as if plain eyes had no adequate use 
to this scientific necessity, and he called up two volun- 
teers to turn the corpses over, keep back the throng, 
give him light, and add imposition to apprehension. 
Finally he stopped at a place in the garments of the 
principal of the twain. “ Here is a hole,” he ex- 
claimed, “ with burned woollen fibre about it, as if a 
pistol had been fired at close quarters. Draw back 
this woollen under-jacket ! There — as I expected, gen- 
tlemen, is a pistol shot in the breast ! What is the 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


*59 


name of the person ? Ah ! thank you ! Well, Wil- 
liam Zane, gentlemen, was shot before he was 
drowned ?” 

• The great crowd swayed and rushed forward again, 
and again the ice cracked like artillery. Before the 
multitude could swarm to the honey of a crime a 
second time, the news was dispersed that both of the 
drowned men had bullet wounds in their bodies, and 
both had been undoubtedly murdered. Some sup- 
posed it was the work of river pirates ; others a private 
revenge, perpetrated by some following boat’s party in 
the darkness of night. But more than one person 
piped shrilly ere the people wearily scattered in the 
dusk for their homes on the two shores of the river : 
“ How did it happen that young Zane, the old un’s 
son, said yisterday that his daddy was about, when 
he’s been frozen in at least three days ?” 

CHAPTER II. 

THE FLIGHT. 

A handsome residence on the south side of Queen 
Street had been the home of the prosperous ship-car- 
penter, William Zane. His name was on the door on 
a" silver plate. As the evening deepened and the news 
spread, the bell was pulled so often that it aided the 
universal alarm following a crime, and a crowd of peo- 
ple, reinforced by others as fast as it thinned out, kept 
up the watch on ever-recurring friends, coroner’s offi- 
cers and newspaper reporters, as they ascended the 
steps, looked grave, made inquiries, and returned to 
dispense their information. 


160 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


But there was very little indignation, for Zane had 
been an insanely passionate man, rather hard and ex- 
acting, and had he been found dead alone anywhere it 
would probably have been said at once that he brought it 
on himself. His partner, Rainey, however, had con- 
ducted himself so negatively and mildly, and was of 
such general estimation, that the murder of the senior 
member of the firm took on some unusual public sym- 
pathy from the reflected sorrow for his fellow-victim. 
The latter had been one of Zane’s apprentices, raised 
to a place in the establishment by his usefulness and 
sincere love of his patron. Just, forbearing, soft- 
spoken, and not avaricious, Sayler Rainey deserved no 
injury from any living being. He was unmarried, and, 
having met with a disappointment in love, had avowed 
his intention never to marry, but to bequeath all the 
property he should acquire to his partner’s only son, 
Andrew Zane. 

What, then, was the motive of this double murder ? 
The public comprehension found but one theory, and 
that was freely advanced by the rash and imputative 
in the community of Kensington : The murderer was 
he who had the only known temptation and object in 
such a crime. Who could gain anything by it but An- 
drew Zane, the impulsive, the mischief-making and 
oft-restrained son of his stern sire, who, by a double 
crime, would inherit that undivided property, free from 
the control of both parent and guardian ? 

“It is parricide ! that’s what it is !“ exclaimed a 
fat woman from Fishtown. “At the bottom of the 
river dead men tell no tales. The rebellious young 
sarpint of a son, who alius pulled a lusty oar, has 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 161 


chased them two older ones into the deep water of the 
channel, where a pistol shot can’t be heard ashore, and 
he expected the property to be his’n. But there are 
gallowses yet, thank the Lord !” 

“ Mrs. Whann, don’t say that,” spoke up a deferen- 
tial voice from the face of a rather sallow-skinned 
young man, with long, ringleted, yellow hair, “ Don’t 
create a prejudice, I beg of you. Andrew Zane was 
my classmate. He gave his excellent father some trou- 
ble, but it shouldn’t be remembered against him now. 
Suppose, my friends, that you let me ring the bell and 
inquire ?” 

“Who’s that?” asked the crowd. “He’s a fine, 
mature-looking, charitable young man, anyway.” 

“Its the old Minister Van de Lear’s son, Calvin. 
He’s going to succeed his venerable and pious poppy 
in Kensington pulpit. They’ll let him in.” 

The door closed when Calvin Van de Lear entered 
the residence of the late William Zane. When it re- 
opened he was seen with a handkerchief in his hand 
and his hat pulled down over his eyes, as if he had 
been weeping. 

“ Stop ! stop ! don’t be going off that way !” inter- 
posed the fat fishwife. “You said you would tell us the 
news.” 

“ My friends,” replied Calvin Van de Lear, with a 
look of the greatest pain, “ Andrew Zane has not been 
heard from. I fear your suspicions are too true !” 

He crossed the street and disappeared into the low 
and elderly residence of his parents. 

“ Alas ! alas !” exclaimed a grave and gentle old 
man. “ That Andrew Zane should not be here to 


162 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


meet a charge like this ! But I’ll not believe it till I 
have prayed with my God.” 

Within the Zane residence all was as in other houses 
on funeral eves. In the front parlor, ready for an in- 
quest or an undertaker, lay the late master of the 
place, laid out, and all the visitors departed except his 
housekeeper, Agnes, and her friend, ” Podge” Byer- 
ly. The latter was a sunny-haired and nimble little 
lady, under twenty years of age, who taught in one of 
the public schools and boarded with her former school- 
mate, Agnes Wilt. Agnes was an orphan of unknown 
parentage, by many supposed to have been a niece or 
relative of Mr. Zane’s deceased wife, whose place she 
took at the head of the table, and had grown to be one 
of the principal social authorities in Kensington. In 
Reverend Mr. Van de Lear’s church she was both 
teacher and singer. The young men of Kensington 
were all in love with her, but it was generally under- 
stood that she had accepted Andrew Zane, and was 
engaged to him. 

Andrew was not dissipated, but was fond of pranks, 
and so restive under his father’s positive hand that he 
twice ran away to distant seaports, and thus incurred 
a remarkable amount of intuitive gossip, such as be- 
longs to all old settled suburban societies. This oc- 
casional firmness of character in the midst of a gener- 
ally light and flexible life, now told against him in the 
public mind. “ He has nerve enough to do anything 
desperate in a pinch,” exclaimed the very wisest. 
“ Didn’t William Zane find him out once in the island 
of Barbadoes grubbing sugar-cane with a hoe, and the 
thermometer at 120 in the shade? And didn’t he 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 163 


swear he’d stay there and die unless concessions were 
made to him, and certain things never brought up 
again ? Didn’t even his iron-shod father have to give 
way before he would come home ? Ah ! Andrew is 
light-hearted, but he is an Indian in self-will !” 

To-night Agnes was in the deepest grief. Upon 
her, and only her, fell the whole burden of this double 
crime and mystery, ten times more terrible that her 
lover was compromised and had disappeared. 

“ Go to bed, Podge !” said Agnes, as the clock in 
the engine-house struck midnight. “ Oblige me, my 
dear ! I cannot sleep, and shall wait and watch. Per- 
haps Andrew will be here.” 

” I can’t leave you up, Aggy, and with that thing 
so near.” She looked toward the front parlor, where, 
behind the folding-doors, lay the dead. 

“ I have no fear of that. He was always kind to 
me. My fears are all in this world. O darling /” 

She burst into sobs. Her friend kissed her ggain 
and again, and knew that feelings between love and 
crime extorted that last word. 

“ Aggy,” spoke the light-hearted girl, “ I know that 
you cannot help loving him, and as long as he is loved 
by you I sha’n’t believe him guilty. Must 1 really 
leave you here ?” 

Her weeping friend turned up her face to give the 
mandatory kiss, and Podge was gone. 

Agnes sat in solitude, with her hands folded and her 
heart filled with unutterable tender woe, that so much 
causeless cloud had settled upon the home of her ref- 
uge. She could not experience that relief many of us 
feel in deep adversity, that it is all illusion, and will in 


1 64 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


a moment float away like other dreams. Brought to 
this house an orphan, and twice deprived of a mother’s 
love, she had only entered woman’s estate when an- 
other class of cares beset her. Her beauty and sweet- 
ness of disposition had brought her more lovers than 
could make her happy. There was but one on whom 
she could confer her heart, and this natural choice had 
drawn around her the perils which now overwhelmed 
them all. Accepting the son, she incurred the father’s 
resentment upon both ; for he, the dead man yonder, 
had also been her lover. 

“ Oh, my God !” exclaimed the anguished woman, 
kneeling by her chair and laying her cheek upon it, 
while only such tears as we shed in supreme moments 
saturated her handkerchief, “what have I done to 
make such misery to others ? How sinful I must be 
to set son and father against each other ! Yet, Heav- 
enly Father, I can but love !” 

There was a cracking of something, as if the dead 
man in the great, black parlor had carried his jealousy 
beyond his doom and was breaking from his coffin to 
upbraid her. A door burst open in the dining-room, 
which was behind her, and then the dining-room door 
also unclosed, and was followed by a cold, graveyard 
draft. A moment of superstition possessed Agnes. 
“ Guard me, Saviour,” she murmured. 

At the dining-room threshold, advancing a little over 
the sill, as if to rush upon her, was the figure of a man, 
dressed, head to foot, in sailor’s garments — heavy 
woollens, comforter, tarpaulin overalls, and knit cap. 
He looked at her an instant, standing there, shivering, 
and then he retired apace or two and closed the door to 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 165 


the cellar, by which he had entered the house. Even 
this little movement in the intruder had something 
familiar about it. He advanced again, directly and 
j rapidly, toward her, but she did not scream. He 
1 threw both arms around her, and she did not cry. 
Something had entered with that bold figure which ex- 
tinguished all crime and superstition in the monarchy 
of its presence — Love. 

A kiss, as fervent and long as only the reunited ever 
give with purity, drew the soul of the suspected mur- 
derer and his sweeheart into one temple. 

“ Agnes,” he whispered hoarsely, when it was 
given, “ they have followed me hard to-night. Every 
place I might have resorted to is watched. All Ken- 
sington — my oldest friends — believe me guilty ! I can- 
not face it. With this kiss I must go.” 

“ Oh, Andrew, do not ! Here is the place to make 
your peace ; here take your stand and await the worst.” 

“ Agnes,” he repeated, “ I have no defence. Noth- 
ing but silence would defend me now, and that would 
hang me to the gallows. I come to put my life and 
soul into your hands. Can you pray for me, bad as I 
am ?” 

“ Dear Andrew,” answered Agnes, weeping fast, “ I 
have no power to stop you, and I cannot give you up. 
Yes, I will pray for you now, before you start on your 
journey. Go open those folding-doors and we will 
pray in the other room.” 

“ What is there ?” 

“Your father.” 

He stopped a long while, and his cheek was 
blanched. 


1 66 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


“ Go first, ' ’ he whispered finally. “I am not 
afraid. ” 

She led the way to the bier, where the body, with 
the frost hardly yet thawed from it, lay under the dim 
light of the chandelier. Turning up the burners it was 
revealed in its relentless, though not unhappy, expres- 
sion — a large and powerful man, bearded and with tas- 
sels of gray in his hair. 

The young man in his coarse sailor’s garb, muffled 
up for concealment and disguise, placed his arm 
around Agnes, and his knees were unsteady as he gazed 
down on the remains and began to sob. 

“ Dear,” she murmured, also weeping, “ I know you 
loved him !” 

The young man’s sobs became so loud that Agnes 
drew him to a chair, and as she sat upon it he laid his 
head in her lap and continued there to express a deep 
inward agony. 

“ I loved him always,” he articulated at last, “ so 
help me God, I did ! And a parricide \ Can you sur- 
vive it ?” 

“ Andrew,” she replied, “I have taken it all to 
heaven and laid the sin there. Forever, my darling, 
intercession continues for all our offences only there. 
It must be our recourse in this separation every day 
when we rise and lie down. Though blood-stained, he 
can wash as white as snow.” 

“ I will try, I will try!” he sobbed; “but your 
goodness is my reliance, dearest. I have always been 
disobedient to my father, but never thought it would 
come to this.” 

“ Nor I, Andrew. Poor, rash uncle !” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 167 


“ Agnes,” whispered Andrew Zane, rising with a 
sudden fear, “ I hear people about the house — on the 
pavement, on the doorsteps. Perhaps they are sus- 
pecting me. I must fly. Oh ! shall we ever meet again 
under a brighter sky ? Will you cling to me ? I am 
going out, abandoned by all the world. Nothing is 
left me but your fidelity. Will it last ? You know 
you are beautiful !” 

“ Oh, sad words to say !” sighed Agnes. “ Let 
none but you ever say them to me again. Beautiful, 
and to the end of such misery as this ! My only love, 
I will never forsake you !”* 

“ Then I can try the world again, winter as it is. 
Once more, ah, God ! let me ask forgiveness from 
these frozen lips. My father ! pursue me not, though 
deep is my offence ! Farewell, farewell forever !” 

He disappeared down the cellar as he had come, and 
Agnes heard at the outer window the sound ot his 
escaping. When all was silent she fell to the floor, and 
lay there helplessly weeping. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE DEAF MAN. 

The inquest was held, and the jury pronounced the 
double crime murder by persons unknown, but with 
strong suspicion resting on Andrew Zane and an un- 
known laborer, who had left Pettit’s or Treaty Island, 
at night, in an open boat with William Zane and Sayler 
Rainey. A reward was offered for Andrew Zane and 
the laborer. 

The will of the deceased persons made Andrew Zane 


168 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


full legatee of both estates, and left a life interest in 
the Queen Street house, and $2000 a year to “ Agnes 
Wilt, my ward and housekeeper.” The executors of 
the Zane estate were named as Agnes Wilt, Rev. Silas 
Van de Lear, and Duff Salter. The two dead men 
were interred together in the old Presbyterian burial- 
ground, and after a month or two of diminishing ex- 
citement, Kensington settled down to the idea that 
there was a great mystery somewhere ; that Andrew 
Zane was probably guilty ; but that the principal evi- 
dence against him was his own flight. 

As to Agnes, there was only one respectable opinion 
— that she was a superb work of nature and triumph 
of womanhood, notwithstanding romantic and possibly 
awkward circumstances of origin and relation. All 
men, of whatever time of life and for whatsoever rea- 
son, admired her — the mean and earthy if only for her 
mould, the morally discerning for her beautiful quality 
that pitied, caressed, encouraged, or elevated all who 
came within her sphere. 

“ Preachers of the Gospel ought to have such wives,” 
said the Rev. Silas Van de Lear, looking at his son 
Calvin, “ as Agnes Wilt. She is the most handy 
church woman in all my ministration in Kensington, 
which is now forty years. Besides being pious, and 
virtuous, and humble before God, she is very comely to 
the eye, and possesses a house and an independent in- 
come. A wife like that would naturally help a young 
minister to get a higher call.” 

Young Calvin, who was expected to succeed his 
father in the venerable church close by, and was study- 
ing divinity, said with much cool maturity : 


THE DEAF MAiY OF KENSINGTON. 169 


“ Pa, I’ve taken it all in. She’s the only single girl 
in Kensington worth proposing to. It’s true that we 
don’t know just who she is, but it’s not that I’m so 
much afraid of as her, her — in short, her piety.” 

“ Piety does not stand in the way of marriage,” an- 
swered the old man, who was both bold and prudent, 
wise and sincere. “ In the covenant of God nothing 
is denied to his saints in righteousness. The sense of 
wedded pleasure, the beauty that delights the eye, love, 
appetite, children, and financial independence — all are 
ours, no less as of the Elect than as worldly creatures. 
The love of God in the heart warms men and women 
toward each other.” 

“ Oh, as to that !” exclaimed Calvin, ” I’ve been 
warmed toward Miss Agnes since I was a boy. I think 
she is superb. But she is a little too good for me. 
She looks at me whenever I talk to her, whereas the 
proper way of humility would be to look down. She 
has been in love with Andrew Zane, you know !” 

“ That,” said the preacher, “ is probably off ; 
though I never discovered in Andrew more evil than a 
light heart and occasional rebellion. If she loves him 
still, do not be in haste to jar her sensibility. It is 
thoughtfulness which engenders love.” 

The young women of Kensington were divided about 
Agnes Wilt. The poorer girls thought her perfect. 
But some marriageable and some married women, mov- 
ing in her own sphere of society, criticised her popu- 
larity, and said she must be artful to control so many 
men. There are no depths to which jealousy cannot 
go in a small suburban society. Agnes, as an orphan, 
had felt it since childhood, but nothing had ever hap- 


170 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


pened until now to concentrate slander as well as sym- 
pathy upon her. It was told abroad that she had been 
the mistress of her deceased benefactor, who had fallen 
by the hands of his infuriated son. Even the police 
authorities gave some slight consideration to this view. 
Old people remarked : “If she has been deceiving 
people, she will not stop now. She will have other 
secret lovers.'’ 

Inquiries had been made for some time as to who 
the unknown executor, Duff Salter, might be, when 
one day Rev. Mr. Van de Lear walked over to the 
Zane house with a broad-shouldered, grave, silent-eyed 
man, who wore a very long white beard reaching to his 
middle. As he was also tall and but little bent, he 
had that mysterious union of strength and age which 
was perfected by his expression of long and absolute 
silence. 

“ Agnes,” said Mr. Van de Lear, “ this is an old 
Scotch-Jrish friend and classmate of the late Mr. Zane, 
Duff Salter of Arkansas. He cannot hear what I have 
said, for he is almost stone deaf. However, go through 
the motions of shaking hands. I am told he has heard 
very little of anything for the past ten years. An ex- 
plosion in a quicksilver mine broke his ear-drums.” 

Agnes, dressed in deep black, shook hands with the 
grave stranger dutifully, and said : 

“ I am sure you are welcome, sir.” 

Mr. Salter looked at her closely and gently, and 
seemed to be pleased with the inspection, for he took 
a small gold box from his pocket, unlocked it and 
sniffed a pinch of snuff, and then gave a sneeze, which 
he articulated, plain as speech, into the words : “ Jeri- 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 171 


cho ! Jericho !" Then placing the box in the pocket 
of his long coat, he remarked : 

“ Miss Agnes, as one of the executors is a lady, and 
another is our venerable friend here, who has no inclina- 
tion to attend to the settlement of Mr. Zane’s estate, 
it will devolve upon me to examine the whole subject. 
I am a stranger in the East. As Mr. Van de Lear 
may have told you, I don’t hear anything. Will I 
be welcome as a boarder under your roof as long 
as I am looking into my old friend’s books and 
papers?" 

" Not only welcome, but a protection to us, sir," 
answered Agnes. 

He took a set of ivory tablets from his pocket, with a 
pencil, and handing it to her politely, said : 

“ Please write your answer." 

She wrote " Yes. " 

The deaf lodger gave as little trouble as could have 
been expected. He had a bedroom, and moved a large 
secretary desk into it, and sat there all day looking at 
figures. If he ever wanted to make an inquiry, he wrote 
it on the tablets, and in the evening had it read and 
answered. Agnes was a good deal of the time preoc- 
cupied, and Podge Byerly, who wrote as neatly as cop- 
per-plate, answered these inquiries, and conducted a 
little conversation of her own. Podge was a slender 
blonde, with fine blue eyes and a mischievous, sylph- 
like way of coming and going. Her freedom of mo- 
tion and address seemed to concern the stranger. One 
day she wrote, after putting down the answer to a busi- 
ness inquiry : 

“ Are you married ?" 


172 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


He hesitated some time and wrote back, “I hope 
not.” 

She retorted, “ Could one forget if one was mar- 
ried ?” 

He replied on the same tablet : “Not when he 
tried.” 

Podge rubbed it all off, and thought a minute, and 
then concluded that evening’s correspondence : 

“You are an old tease !” 

The next morning, as usual, she wrapped herself up 
warmly and took the omnibus for her school, and saw 
him watching her out of the upper window. That 
night, instead of any inquiries, he stalked down in his 
worked slippers — the dead man’s — and long dressing 
gown, and, after smiling at all, took Podge Byerly’s 
hand and looked at it. This time he spoke in a sweet, 
modulated voice, 

‘‘Very pretty !” 

She was about to reply, when he gave her the ivory 
tablet, and put his finger on his lip. 

She wrote, “ Did you ever fight a duel ?” 

He shook his head “ No.” 

She wrote again, “ What else do they do in Arkan- 
sas ?” 

He replied, “ They love.” 

Then Mr. Duff Salter sneezed very loudly, “Jeri- 
cho ! Jericho ! Jericho !” Podge ran off at such a 
serious turn of responses, but was too much of a woman 
not to be lured back of her own will. He wrote later 
in the evening this touching query : 

“How do the birds sing now? Are they all 
dumb ?” 


THE DEAF MAH OF KENSINGTON. 173 

She answered, “ Many can hear who never heard 
them.” 

He wrote again, “ Are you suspicious ?” 

She replied, “ Very. Are you ?” 

He shook his head “ No.” 

“ I believe he A,” said Podge, turning to Agnes, 
who had entered. “ He looks as if he had asked that 
question of himself.” 

Duff Salter seized his handkerchief and sneezed into 
it, “ Jericho*o ! Jericho-wo !” 

Podge was sure he was suspicious the next night 
when she read on his tablets the rather imputative re- 
mark, 

“ Is there anything demoralizing in teaching public 
schools ?” 

She replied tartly, “Yes, stupid old visitors and 
parents !” 

“ Excuse me !” he wrote ; “I meant politicians.” 

She replied in the same spirit as before, “ I think 
politicians are divine !” 

Duff Salter looked a little wondering out of those 
calm gray eyes and his strong, yet benevolent Scotch- 
Irish countenance. Podge, who now talked freely 
with Agnes in his presence, said confidently : 

“ I believe I can tantalize this good old granny by 
giving him doubts about me ! I am real bad, Aggy ; 
you know that ! It is no story to tell it !” 

“ Oh ! we are both bad enough to try to improve,” 
exclaimed Agnes absently. 

“ Jericho ! Jericho ! Jericho !” sneezed Duff Sal- 
ter. 

He came down every evening, and began respectfully 


174 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


to bow to Agnes and to smile on Podge, and then 
stretched his feet out to the ottoman, drew his tablets 
up to the small table and proceeded to write. They 
hallooed into his ear once or twice, but he said he was 
deaf as a mill-stone, and might be cursed to his face 
and wouldn’t understand it. They had formed a pleas- 
ing opinion of him, not unmixed with curiosity, when 
one night he wrote on the back of a piece of paper : 

“ Have you any idea who wrote this anonymous note 
to me ?” 

Podge Byerly took the note and found in a woman’s 
handwriting these words : 

“ Mr. Duff Salter, I suppose you know where you 
are. Your hostesses are very insinuating and artful — 
and what else, you can find out ! One man has been 
murdered in that family ; another has disappeared. 
They say in Kensington the house of Zane is haunted. 

“ A Warner.” 

Podge read the note, and her tears dropped upon it. 
He moved forward as if to speak to her, but correcting 
himself hastily, he wrote upon the tablets : 

“ Not even a suspicious person is affected the least 
by an anonymous letter. I only keep it that possibly 
I may detect the sender !” 

CHAPTER IV. 

A SUITOR. 

Duff Salter and the ladies were sitting in the back 
parlor one evening following the events just related, 
when the door-bell rang, and Podge Byerly went to 
see who was there. She soon returned and closed the 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


175 


door of the front parlor, leaving a little crack, by acci- 
dent, and lighted the gas there. 

“ Aggy,” whispered Podge, coming in, “there’s 
Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, our future minister. He’s 
elegantly dressed, and has a nosegay in his hand.” 

“ Can’t you entertain him, dear ?’’ 

“ I would be glad enough, but he asked in a very de- 
cided way for you.” 

“Forme?” 

Agnes looked distressed. 

“ Yes ; he said very distinctly, 1 I called to pay my 
respects particularly to Miss Agnes to-night.’ ” 

Agnes left the room, and Duff Salter and Podge 
were again together. Podge could hear plainly what 
was said in the front parlor, and partly see, by the 
brighter light there, the motions of the visitor and her 
friend. She wrote on Duff Salter’s tablet, “ A deaf 
man is a great convenience !” 

“ Why ?” wrote the large, grave man. 

“ Because he can’t hear what girls say to their beaux.” 

“ Is that a beau calling on our beautiful friend?” 

“ I’m afraid so !” 

“ How do you feel when a beau comes ?” 

“ We feel important.” 

“ You don’t feel grateful, then ; only compli- 
mented.” 

“ No ; we feel that on one of two occasions we have 
the advantage over a man. We can play him like a 
big fish on a little angle.” 

“ When is the other occasion ?” 

“ Some women,” wrote Podge, “ play just the same 
with the man they marry !” 


176 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Duff Salter looked up surprised. 

“ Isn’t that wrong ?” he wrote. 

She answered mischievously, “ A kind of !” 

The large, bearded man looked so exceedingly grave 
that Podge burst out laughing. 

“ Don’t you know,” she wrote, “ that the propensity 
to plague a man dependent on you is inherent in every 
healthy woman ?” 

He wrote, ‘‘ I do know it, and it’s a crime !” 

Podge thought to herself “ This old man is dread- 
fully serious and suspicious sometimes.” 

As Duff Salter relapsed into silence, gazing on the 
fire, the voice of Calvin Van de Lear was heard by 
Podge, pitched in a low and confident key, from the 
parlor side : 

“ I called, Agnes, when I thought sufficient time had 
elapsed since the troubles here, to express my deep in- 
terest in you, and to find you, I hoped, with a disposi- 
tion to turn to the sunny side of life’s affairs,” 

“lam not ready to take more than a necessary part 
in anything outside of this house,” replied Agnes. 
“ My mind is altogether preoccupied. I thank you 
for your good wishes, Mr. Van de Lear.” 

“ Now do be less formal,” said the young man per- 
suasively. “ I have always been Cal. before — short 
and easy, Cal. Van de Lear. You might call me 
almost anything, Aggy.” 

“ I have changed, sir. Our afflictions have taught 
me that I am no longer a girl.” 

“ You won’t call me Cal., then ?” 

‘‘No, Mr. Van de Lear.” 

‘‘I see how it is,” exclaimed the visitor. ‘‘You 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 


177 


think because I am studying for or'ders I must be looked 
up to. Aggy, that's got nothing to do with social 
things. When I take the governor’s place in our pul- 
pit I shall make my sermons for this generation alto- 
gether crack, sentimental sermons, and drive away 
dull care. That’s my understanding of the good 1 * 
shepherd.” 

“ Mr. Van de Lear, there are some cares so natural 
that they are almost consolation. Under the pressure of 
them we draw nearer to happiness. What merry words 
should be said to those who were bred under this roo 
in such misfortunes as I have now — as the absent 
have ?” 

Podge saw Agnes put her handkerchief to her face, 
and her neck shake a minute convulsively. Duff Sal- 
ter here sneezed loudly : “ Jericho ! Jerichew ! Je-ry- 
cho-o !” He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and 
Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the 
tears came to her eyes and her hair was shaken down. 
She wrote on the tablets, 

“ Men could eat dirt and enjoy it.” 

He replied, “ At last dirt eats all the men.” 

“ It’s to get rid of them !” wrote Podge. ** My 
boys at school are dirty by inclination. They will 
chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe to 
slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquor- 
ice will demoralize a whole class. They pass it 
around. ’ ’ 

Duff Salter replied, ” The boys must have something 
in their mouths ; the girls in their heads !” 

“ But not liquorice root,” added Podge. 

“ No ; they put the boys in their heads !” 


178 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


“ Pshaw !” wrote Podge, “ girls don’t like boys. 
They like nice old men who will pet them.” 

Here Podge ran out of the room and the conversa- 
tion in the front parlor was renewed. The voice of 
Calvin Van de Lear said : 

“ Agnes, looking at your affairs in the light of relig- 
ious duty, as you seem to prefer, I must tell you that 
your actions have not always been perfect.” 

Nothing was said in reply to this. 

“ I am to be your pastor at some not distant day,” 
spoke the same voice, ‘ ‘ and may take some of that privi- 
lege now. As a daughter of the church you should give 
the encouragement of your beauty and favor only to 
serious, and approrved, and moral young men. Not 
such scapegraces as Andrew Zane !” 

” Sir !” exclaimed Agnes, rising. “ How dare you 
speak of the poor absent one ?” 

“ Sit down,” exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, not a 
bit discomposed. ” I have some disciplinary power 
now, and shall have more. A lady in full communion 
with our church — a single woman without a living 
guardian — requires to hear the truth, even from an 
erring brother. You have no right to go outside 
the range at least of respectable men, to place your 
affections and bestow your beauty and religion on 
a particularly bad man — a criminal indeed — one al- 
ready fled from this community, and under circum- 
stances of the greatest suspicion. I mean Andrew 
Zane !” 

“ Hush !” exclaimed Agnes ; “ perhaps he is dead.” 

A short and awkward quiet succeeded, broken by 
young Van de Lear’s interruption at last : 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


W9 


# 

“ Aggy, I don’t know but it is the best thing. Is it 
so ?” 

“ For shame, sir !” 

“ He wouldn’t have come to any good. I know him 
well. We went to school together here in Kensington. 
Under a light and agreeable exterior he concealed an 
obstinacy almost devilish. All the tricks and dare- 
devil feats we heard of, he was at the head of them. 
After he grew up his eyes fell on you. For a time 
he was soberer. Then, perceiving that you were also 
his father’s choice, he conspired against his father, re- 
peatedly absconded, and gave that father great trouble 
to find and return him to his home, and still stepped 
between Mr. Zane and his wishes. Was that the part 
of a grateful and obedient son ?” 

Not a word was returned by Agnes Wilt. 

“ How ill-advised,” continued Calvin Van de Lear, 
“ was your weakness during that behavior ! Do you 
know what the tattle of all Kensington is ? That you 
favored both the father and the son ! That you de- 
clined the son only because his father might disinherit 
him, and put off the father because the son would have 
the longer enjoyment of his property ! I have defended 
you everywhere on these charges. They say even 
more, Miss Agnes — if you prefer it — that the murder 
of the father was not committed by Andrew Zane with- 
out an instigator, perhaps an accessory.” 

The voice of Agnes was heard in hasty and anxious 
imploration : 

“For pity’s sake, say no more. Be silent. Am I 
not bowed and wretched enough ?’ ’ 

She came hastily to the fissure of the door and looked 


180 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


in, because Duff Salter just then sneezed tremen- 
dously : 

“ Jericho- o-o-o ! Jer-ry-cho-o-o V* • 

Podge Byerly reappeared with a pack of cards and 
shuffled them before Duff Salter’s face. 

They sat down and played a game of euchre for a 
cent a point, the tablets at hand between them to write 
whatever was mindful. Duff Salter was the best 
player. 

“ I believe,” wrote Podge, “ that all Western men 
are gamblers. Are you ?” 

He wrote, to her astonishment, 

“ I was.” 

“ Wasn’t it a sin ?” 

‘‘Not there.” 

“ I thought gambling was a sin everywhere ?” 

“ It is everywhere done,” wrote Duff Salter. “ You 
are a gambler. ’ ’ 

“ That’s a fib.” 

“ You risk your heart, capturing another’s.” 

“ My heart is gone,” added Podge, blushing. 

“ What’s his name ?” wrote Duff Salter. 

“ That’s telling.” 

Again the voices of the two people in the front par- 
lor broke on Podge’s ear : 

“You must leave me, Mr. Van de Lear. You do 
not know the pain and wrong you are doing me.” 

“ Agnes, I came to say I loved you. Your beauty 
has almost maddened me for years. Your resistance 
would give me anger if I had not hope left, I know 
you loved me once.” 

“ Sir, it is impossible ; it is cruel.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


181 


“ Cruel to love you ?” repeated the divinity student. 
“ Come now, that's absurd ! No woman is annoyed 
by an offer. I swear I love you reverently. I can put 
you at the head of this society — the wife of a clergy- 
man. Busy tongues shall be stilled at your coming 
and going, and the shadow of this late tragedy will no 
more plague your reputation, protected in the bosom 
of the church and nestled in mine.” 

Sounds of a slight struggle were heard, as if the 
amorous young priest were trying to embrace Agnes. 

Podge arose, listening. 

The face of Duff Salter was stolid, and unconscious 
of anything but the game of cards. 

“ I tell you, sir !” exclaimed Agnes, “ that your at- 
tentions are offensive. Will you force me to insult 
you ?” 

“ Oh ! that’s all put on, my subtle beauty. You are 
not alarmed by these delicate endearments. Give 
me a kiss !” 

“ Calvin Van de Lear, you are a hypocrite. The 
gentleman you have slandered to win my favor is as 
dear to me as you are repulsive. Nay, sir, I’ll teach 
you good behavior !” 

She threw open the folding-doors just as Duff Salter 
had come to a terrific sneeze. 

“ Jericho ! Jericho ! Jer-rick-co-o*o-oh !” 

Looking in with bold suavity, Calvin Van de Lear 
made a bow and took up his hat. 

“ Good-night,” he said, “ most reputable ladies, two 
of a kind !” 

“ I think,” wrote Duff Salter frigidly, as the young 
man slammed the door behind him, “ that we’ll make 


j 82 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


a pitcher of port sangaree and have a little glass before 
we go to bed. We will all three take a hand at cards. 
What shall we play ?” 

“ Euchre — cut-throat !” exclaimed Podge Byerly, 
rather explosively. 

Duff Salter seemed to have heard this, for, with his 
grave eyes bent on Agnes, he echoed, dubiously : 

“ Cut-throat !” 

With an impatient motion Podge Byerly snatched at 
the cards, and they fell to the floor. 

Agnes burst into tears and left the room. 

“ Upon my word,” thought Podge Byerly, “ I be- 
lieve this old gray rat is a detective officer !” 

There was a shadow over the best residence on 
Queen Street. 

Anonymous letters continued to come in almost by 
every mail, making charges and imputations upon 
Agnes, and frequently connecting Podge Byerly with 
her. 

Terrible epithets — such as “ Murderess !” “A 
second Mrs. Chapman !” “ Jezebel,” etc. — were em- 
ployed in these letters. 

Many of them were written by female hands or in 
very delicate male chirography, as if men who wrote 
like women had their natures. 

There was one woman’s handwriting the girls learned 
to identify, and she wrote more often than any — more 
beautifully in the writing, more shameless in the mean- 
ing, as if, with the nethermost experience in sensuality, 
she was prepared to subtleize it and be the universal 
accuser of her sex. 

“ What fiends must surround us !” exclaimed Agnes. 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 183 


“ There must be a punishment deeper than any for the 
writers of anonymous letters. A murderer strikes the 
vital spot but once. Here every commandment is 
broken in the cowardly secret letter. False witness, 
the stab, illicit joy, covetousness, dishonor of father 
and mother, and defamation of God’s image in the J 
heart, are all committed in these loathsome letters.” 

“Yes,” added Podge Byerly, “the woman who 
writes anonymous letters, I think, will have a cancer, 
or wart on her eye, or marry a bow-legged man. The 
resurrectionists will get her body, and the primary 
class in the other world will play whip-top with the 
rest of her. ” 

Agnes and Podge went to church prayer-meeting the 
night following Calvin Van de Lear’s repulse at their 
dwelling, and Mr. Duff Salter gave each of them an arm. 

Old Mr. Van de Lear led the exercises, and, after 
several persons had publicly prayed by the direction of 
the venerable pastor, Calvin Van de Lear, of his own 
motion and as a matter of course, took the floor and 
launched into a florid supplication almost too elegant 
to be extempore. 

As he continued, Podge Byerly, looking through her 
fingers, saw a handsome, high-colored woman at Cal- 
vin’s side, stealing glances at Agnes Wilt. 

It was the wife of Calvin Van de Lear’s brother, 
Knox — a blonde of large, innocent eyes, who usually 
came with Calvin to the church. 

While Podge noticed this inquisitive or stray glance, 
she became conscious that something in the prayer 
was directing the attention of the whole meeting to 
their pew. 


1 84 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


People turned about, and, with startled or bold 
looks, observed Agnes Wilt, whose head was bowed 
and her veil down. 

The voice of Calvin Van de Lear sounded high and 
meaningful as Podge caught these sentences : 

“ Lord, smite the wicked and unjust as thou smotest 
Sapphira by the side of Ananias. We find her now in 
the mask of beauty, again of humility, even, O Lord, of 
religion, leading the souls of men down to death and 
hell. Thou knowest who stand before Thee to do lip 
service. All hearts are open to Thee. If there be any 
here who have deceived Thine elect by covetousness, 
or adultery, or murder , Lord, make bare Thine arm !” 

The rest of the sentence was lost in the terrific series 
of sneezes from Duff Salter, who had taken too big a 
pinch of snuff and forgot himself, so as to nearly lift 
the roof off the little old brick church with his deeply 
accentuated, 

“ Jer-i-cho-whoe !” 

Even old Silas Van de Lear looked over the top of 
the pulpit and smiled, but, luckily, Duff Salter could 
hardly hear his own sneezes. 

As they left the church Agnes put down her veil, 
and trembled under the stare of a hundred investigat- 
ing critics. 

When they were in the street, Podge Byerly re- 
marked : 

“ Oh ! that we had a man to resent such meanness as 
that. I think that those who address God with slant 
arrows to wound others, as is often done at prayer-meet- 
ing, will stand in perdition beside the writers of anony- 
mous letters.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 185 


“They are driving me to the last point,” said 
Agnes. “ I can go to church no more. When will 
they get between me and heaven ? Yet the Lord’s will 
be done. ” 


CHAPTER V. 

THE GHOST. 

Spring broke on the snug little suburb, and buds 
£nd birds fulfilled their appointments on the boughs of 
willows, ailanthuses, lindens, and maples. Some peach- 
trees in the back yard of the Zane House hastened to 
put on their pink scarves and bonnets, and the boys 
said that an old sucker of Penn’s Treaty Elm down 
in a ship-yard was fresh and blithsome as a second 
wife. In the hearts and views of living people, too, 
spring brought a budding of youthfulness and a gush of 
sap. Duff Salter acknowledged it as he looked in 
Podge Byerly’s blue eyes and felt her hands as they 
wrapped his scarf around him, or buttoned his gloves. 
Whispering, and without the tablets this time, he ar- 
ticulated : 

“ Happy for you, Mischief, that I am not young as 
these trees !” 

“ We’ll have you set out !” screamed Podge, “ like 
a piece of hale old willow, and you’ll grow again !” 

Duff Salter frequently walked almost to her school 
with Podge Byeily, which was far down in the old city. 
They seldom took the general cut through Maiden and 
Laurel Streets to Second, but kept down the river 
bank by Beach Street, to see the ship-yards and hear 
the pounding of rivets and the merry adzes ringing, 


1 86 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


and see youngsters and old women gathering chips, 
while the sails on the broad river came up on wind 
and tide as if to shatter the pier-heads ere they 
bounded off. 

In the afternoons Duff Salter sometimes called on 
Rev. Silas Van de Lear, who had great expectations 
that Duff would build them a much-required new 
church, with the highest spire in Kensington. 

“ Here, Brother Salter, is an historic spot,” wrote 
the good old man. “ I shouldn’t object to a spire 
on my church, with the figure of William Penn on the 
summit. Friend William and his sons always did well 
by our sect. ” 

‘‘Is it an established fact that he treated with the 
Indians in Kensington ?” asked Duff Salter, on his 
ivory tablets. 

“ Indisputable ! Friend Penn took Thomas Fair- 
man’s house at Shackamaxon — otherwise Eel-Hole — 
and in this pleasant springtime, April 4, 1683, he 
met King Tammany under the forest elm, with the 
savage people in half-moon circles, looking at the 
healthy-fed and business-like Quaker. There Tam- 
many and his Indian allies surrendered all the land be- 
tween the Pennypack and Neshaminy.” 

“ A Tammany haul !” interrupted young Calvin 
Van de Lear, rather idiotically. “ What did the 
shrewd William give ?” 

“ Guns, scissors, knives, tongs, hoes, and Indian 
money, and gew-gaws — not much. Philadelphia had 
no foundation then, and Shackamaxon was an estab- 
lished place. We are the Knickerbockers here in Ken- 
sington.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 187 


“ An honest Quaker would not build a spire,” wrote 
Duff Salter, with a grim smile. 

Duff Salter was well known to the gossips of Ken- 
sington as a fabulously rich man, who had spent his 
youth partly in this district, and was of Kensington 
parentage, but had roved away to Mexico as a sailor 
boy, or clerk, or passenger, and refusing to return, had 
become a mule-driver in the mines of cinnabar, and 
there had remained for years in nearly heathen soli- 
tude, until once he arrived overland in Arkansas with 
a train from Chihuahua, the whole of it, as was said, 
laden with silver treasure, and his own property. He 
had been disappointed in love, and had no one to leave 
his riches to. This was the story told by Reverend 
Silas Van de Lear. 

The people of Kensington were less concerned with 
the truth of this tale than with the future intentions -of 
the visitor. 

“ How long he tarries in Zane’s homestead !” said 
the people that spring. “ Hasn’t he settled that estate 
yet ?” 

“ It never will be settjed if he can help it,” said 
public Echo, ” as long as there are two fine young 
women there, and one of them so fascinating over 
men !” 

Indeed, Duff Salter received letters, anonymous, of 
course — the anonymous letter was then the suburban 
press — admonishing him to beware of his siren hostess. 

“ She has ruined two men," said the elegant female 
handwriting before observed. "You must want to be 
the subject of a coroner s inquest. That house is bloody 
and haunted, rich Mr. Duff Salter ! Beware of Lady 


1 88 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Agnes, the murderess ! Beware , too , of her accomplice , 
the insinuating little Byerly /” 

Duff Salter walked out one day to make the tour of 
Kensington. He passed out the agreeable old Frank- 
ford road, with its wayside taverns, and hay carts, and 
passing omnibuses, and occasional old farm-like houses, 
interspersed with newer residences of a city character, 
and he strolled far up Cohocksink Creek till it mean- 
dered through billowy fields of green, and skirted the 
edges of woods, and all the way was followed by a 
path made by truant boys. Sitting down by a spring 
that gushed up at the foot of a great sycamore tree, the 
grandly bearded traveller, all flushed with the roses of 
exercise, made no unpleasing picture of a Pan waiting 
for Echo by appointment, or holding talk with the 
grazing goats of the poor on the open fields around 
him. 

“ How changed !” spoke the traveller aloud. “ I 
have caught fishes all along this brook, and waded up 
its bed in summer to cool my feet. The girl was beside 
me whose slender feet in innocent exposure were placed 
by mine to shame their coarser mould. We thought we 
were in love, or as near it as are the outskirts to some 
throbbing town partly instinctive with a coming civic 
destiny. Alas ! the little brook that once ran unvexed 
to the river, freshening green marshes at its outlet, has 
become a sewer, discolored with dyes of factories, and 
closed around by tenements and hovels till its purer 
life is over. My playmate, too, flowed on to woman- 
hood, till the denser social conditions shut her in ; she 
mingled the pure current of her life with another more 
turgid, and dull-eyed children, like houses of the sub- 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 189 


urbs, are builded on her bosom. I am alone, like this 
old tree, beside the spring where once I was a sapling, 
and still, like its waters, youth wells and wells, and 
keeps us yet both green in root. Come back, O Love ! 
and freshen me, and, like a rill, flow down my closing 
years !” 

Duff Salter’s shoulder was touched as he ceased to 
speak, and he found young Calvin Van de Lear behind 
him. 

I have followed you out to the country,” said the 
young man, howling in the elder’s ear, “ because I 
wanted to talk to you aloud, as I couldn’t do in Ken- 
sington.” 

. Duff Salter drew his storied ivory tablets on the di- 
vinity student, and said, crisply, “ Write !” 

“ No, old man, that’s not my style. It’s too slow. 
Besides, it admits of nothing impressive being said, 
and I want to convince you.” 

“ Jericho ! Jericho !” sneezed Duff Salter. 
“ Young man, if you stun my ear that way a third time 
I’ll knock you down. J’m deaf, it’s true, but I’m not 
a hallooing scale to try your lungs on. If you won’t 
write, we can’t talk.” 

With impatience, yet smiling, Calvin Van de Lear 
wrote on the tablets, 

“ Have you seen the ghost ?” 

“ Ghost ?” 

“ Yes, the ghosts of the murdered men !” 

“ I never saw a ghost of anything in my life. What 
men ?” 

“ William Zane and Sayler Rainey.” 

“ Who has seen them ?’ ’ 


19 ° THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


“ Several people. Some say it’s but one that has 
been seen. Zane’s ghost walks, anyway, in Kensing- 
ton.” 

‘‘What for ?” 

“ The fish women and other superstitious people say, 
because their murderers have not been punished.” 

‘‘ And the murderers are — ” 

“ Those who survived and profited by the murder, 
of course ?” 

“ Jer-ri-choo-woo !” exploded Duff Salter. “ Young 
man,” he wrote deliberately, ‘‘you have an idle 
tongue.” 

” Friend Salter, you are blind as well as deaf. Do 
you know Miss Podge Byerly ?” 

‘‘No. Do you?” 

“ She’s common ! Agnes Wilt uses her as a stool- 
pigeon. She fetches, and carries, and flies by night. 
One of the school directors shoved her on the public 
schools for intimate considerations. Perhaps you'll 
see him about the house if you look sharp and late 
some night.” 

“ Jer-rich-co ! Jericho !” 

Duff Salter was decidedly red in the face, and his 
grave gray eyes looked both fierce and convicted. He 
had seen a school director visiting the house, but 
thought it natural enough that he should take a kind 
interest in one of the youthful and pretty teachers. The 
deaf man returned to his pencil and tablets. 

“ Do you know, Mr. Van de Lear, that what you 
are saying is indictable language ? It would have ex- 
posed you to death where I have lived.” 

The young man tossed his head recklessly. Duff 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


191 


Salter now saw that his usually sallow face was flushed 
up to the roots of his long dry hair and almost color- 
less whiskers, as if he had been drinking liquors. For- 
getting to use the tablets, Calvin spoke aloud, but not 
in as high a key as formerly : 

“Mr. Salter, Agnes Wilt has no heart. She was a 
step-niece of the late Mrs. Zane — her brother’s daugh- 
ter. The girl’s father was a poor professional man, 
and died soon after his child was born, followed at 
no great distance to the grave by his widow. While 
a child, Agnes was cold and subtle. She professed to 
love me — that was the understanding in our childhood. 
She has forgotten me as she has forgotten many other 
men. But she is beautiful, and I want to marry her. 
You can help me.” 

“ What do you want with a cold and calculating 
woman?’’ wrote Duff Salter stiffly. “What do you 
want particularly with such a dangerous woman — a 
demon, as you indicate ?” 

“ I want to save her soul, and retrieve her from wick- 
edness. Upon my word, old man, that’s my only 
game. You see, to effect that object would set me up 
at once with the church people. I’m told that a little 
objection to my prospects in the governor’s church 
begins to break out. If I can marry Agnes Wilt, she 
will recover her position in Kensington, and make me 
more welcome in families. I don’t mind telling you 
that I have been a little gay.” 

“That’s nothing,’’ wrote Duff Salter smilingly. 
“ So were the sons of Eli.’’ 

“Correct!’’ retorted Calvin. “I need a taming 
down, and only matrimony can do it. Now, with 


19 2 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


your aid I can manage it. Miss Wilt does not fancy 
me. She can be made to do so, however, by two 
causes.” 

“ And they are — ” 

“ Her fears and her avarice. I propose to bring this 
murder close home to her. If not a principal in it, she 
is an undoubted accessory after the fact. Andrew Zane 
paid her a visit the night the dead bodies were discov- 
ered in the river.” 

‘‘You are sure of this ?” 

“ Perfectly. I have had a detective on his track ; 
too late to arrest the rascal, but the identity of a sailor 
man who penetrated into the house by the coal-hole is 
established by the discovery of the clothing he ex- 
changed for that disguise — it was Andrew Zane. Con- 
cealment of that fact from the law will make her an ac- 
cessory.” 

“ Jericho ! Jericho !” sneezed Duff Salter, but with 
a pale face, and said : 

“ That fact established would be serious ; but it 
would be a gratuitous and vile act for you, who profess 
to love her.” 

‘‘It is love that prompts me — love and pain ! A 
divine anger, I may call it. I propose to make myself 
her rescuer afterward, and establish myself in her grati- 
tude and confidence. You are to help me do this 
by watching the house from the inside.” 

“ Dishonorable !” 

“ You were the friend of William Zane, the mur- 
dered man. Every obligation of friendship impels 
you to discover his murderer. You are rich ; lend me 
money to continue my investigations. I know this is 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


193 


a cool proposition ; but it is better than spending it 
on churches/’ 

“ Very well,” wrote Duff Salter, “ as the late Mr. 
Zane’s executor, I will spend any proper sum of money 
to inflict retribution upon his injurers. I will watch 
the house.” 

They went home through Palmer Street, on which 
stood the little brick church — the street said to be oc- 
casionally haunted by Governor Anthony Palmer’s 
phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his 
twenty-one children in plush breeches and Panama 
hats, crying, “ Water lots ! water fronts ! To let ! to 
lease !” 

As Duff Salter entered the house he saw the school 
director indicated by Calvin Van de Lear sitting in 
the parlor with Podge Byerly. For the first time Duff 
Salter noticed that they looked both intimate and con- 
fused. He tried to reason himself out of this suspicion. 
“ Pshaw,” he said ; ‘‘it was my uncharitable imagina- 
tion. I’ll go back, as if to get something, and look 
more carefully.” 

As the deaf man reopened the parlor-door he saw the 
school director making a motion as if to embrace 
Podge, who was full of blushes and appearing to shrink 
away. 

“ There’s no imagination about that,” thought Duff 
Salter. “If I could only hear well enough my ears 
might counsel me.” 

He felt dejected, and his suspicions colored every- 
thing — a most deplorable state of mind for a gentleman. 
Agnes, too, looked guilty, as he thought, and hardly 
addressed a smile to him as he passed up to his room. 


194 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Duff Salter put on his slippers, lighted his gas, drew 
the curtains down and set the door ajar, for in the in- 
creasing warmth of spring his grate fire was almost an 
infliction. 

“ I have not been wise nor just,” he said to himself. 
“ My pleasing reception in this house, and feminine 
arts, have altogether obliterated my great duty, which 
was to avenge my friend. Yes, suspicion was my duty. 
1 should have been suspicious from the first. Even this 
vicious young Van de Lear, shallow as he is, becomes 
my unconscious accuser. He says, with truth, that 
every obligation of friendship impels me to discover the 
murderers of William Zane. ” 

Duff Salter arose, in the warmth of his feelings, and 
paced up and down the floor. 

“ Ah, William Zane,” he said, “ how does thy image 
come back to me ! I was the only friend he would per- 
mit. In pride of will and solitary purpose he was the 
greatest of all. Rough, unpolished, a poor scholar, but 
full of energy, he desired nothing but he believed it 
his. He desired me to be his friend, and I could not 
have resisted if I would. He made me go with him 
even on his truant expeditions, and carry his game bag 
along the banks of the Tacony, or up the marshes of 
Rancocus. Yet it was a happy servitude ; for beneath 
his impetuous mastery was a soul of devotion. He 
loved like Jove, and permitted no interposition in his 
flame ; his dogmatism and force were barbarous, but 
he gave like a child and fought like a lion. 1 saw him 
last as he was about to enter on business, in the twenty- 
first year of his age, an anxious young man with black 
hair in natural ringlets, a pale brow, gray eyes wide 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 


*95 


apart, and a narrow but wilful chin. He was ever on 
pivot, ready to spring. And murdered !” 

Duff Salter looked at the door standing ajar, at- 
tracted there by some movement, or light, or shadow, 
and the very image he was describing met his gaze. 
There were the black ringlets, the pale forehead, the 
anxious yet wilful expression, and the years of youth- 
ful manhood. It was nothing in this world if not 
William Zane ! 

Duff Salter felt paralyzed for a minute, as the blood 
flowed back to his heart, and a sense of fright over- 
came him. Then he moved forward on tip-toe, as if 
the image might dissolve. It did dissolve as he ad- 
vanced ; with a tripping motion it receded and left a 
naked space. In the darkness of the stairway it ab- 
sorbed itself, and the deaf man grasped the balustrade 
where it had stood, and by his trembling shook the rails 
violently. He then staggered back to his mantel, first 
bolting the door, as if instinctively, and swallowed a 
draught of brandy from a medicinal bottle there. 

“ There is a ghost abroad !” exclaimed Duff Salter 
with a shudder. “ I have seen it.” 

He turned the gas on very brightly, so as to soothe 
his fears with companionable light. Then, while the 
perspiration stood upon his forehead, Duff Salter sat 
down to think. 

” Why does it haunt me?” he said. “Yet whom 
but me should it haunt ? — the executor of my friend, 
intrusted with his dying wishes, bound to him by an- 
cient ties, and recreant to the high duty of punishing 
his murderers ? The ghost of William Zane admonishes 
me that there can be no repose for my spirit until I 


196 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


take in hand the work of vengeance. Yes, if women 
have been accessory to that murder, they shall not be 
spared. Miss Agnes is under surveillance ; let her be 
blameless, or beware !” 

CHAPTER VI. 

ENCOMPASSED. 

“ He looks scared out of last year’s growth,” re- 
marked Podge Byerly when Duff Salter came down- 
stairs next day. 

“ Happy for him, dear, he is not able to hear what is 
around him in this place !” exclaimed Agnes aloud. 

They always talked freely before their guest, and he 
could scarcely be alarmed even by an explosion. 

Duff wrote on his tablets during breakfast : 

“ I must employ a smart man to do errands for me, 
and rid me of some of the burdens of this deafness. 
Do you know of any one ?” 

” A mere laborer ?” inquired Agnes. 

“ Well, an old-fashioned, still-mouthed fellow like 
myself — one who can understand my dumb motions.” 

Agnes shook her head. 

Said Duff Salter to himself : 

“ She don’t want me to find such an one, I guess.” 
Then, with the tablets again, he added, ” It’s neces- 
sary for me to hunt a man at once, and keep him here 
on the premises, close by me. I have almost finished 
up this work of auditing and clearing the estate. I 
intend now to pay some attention to the tragedy, acci- 
dent, or whatever it was, that led to Mr. Zane’s cutting 
off. You will second me warmly in this, I am sure.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


197 


Agnes turned pale, and felt the executor’s eyes upon 
her. 

Podge Byerly was pale too. 

Duff Salter did not give them any opportunity to re- 
cover composure. 

“To leave the settlement of this estate with such a 
cloud upon it would be false to my trust, to my great 
friend’s memory, and, I may add, to all here. There 
is a mystery somewhere which has not been pierced. 
It is very probably a domestic entanglement. I shall 
expect you (to Agnes), and you, too,” turning to 
Podge, “to be absolutely frank with me. Miss Agnes, 
have you seen Andrew Zane since his father’s body was 
brought into this house !” 

Agnes looked around helplessly and uncertain. She 
took the tablets to write a reply. Something seemed 
to arise in Her mind to prevent the intention. She 
burst into tears and left the table. 

“ Ha !” thought Duff Salter grimly, “ there will be 
no confession there. Then, little Miss Byerly, I will 
try to throw off its guard thy saucy perversity ; for 
surely these two women understand each other.” 

After breakfast he followed Podge Byerly down 
Queen Street and through Beach, and came up with 
her as she went out of Kensington to the Delaware 
water-front about the old Northern Liberties dis- 
trict. 

Duff bowed with a little of diffidence amid all his 
gravity, and sneezed as if to hide it : 

“ Jericho !— Miss Podge, see the time — eight 
o’clock, and an hour before school. Let us go look 
at the river.” 


1 98 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 


They walked out on the wharf, and were wholly con- 
cealed from shore by piles of cord- wood and staves. 

“ I like to get off here, away from listeners, where I 
need not be bellowed at and tire out well-meaning 
lungs. Now — Jericho ! Jericho !” he sneezed, without 
any sort of meaning. “ Miss Podge,” said Duff Sal- 
ter, “ if you look directly into my eyes and articulate 
distinctly, I can hear all you say without raising your 
voice higher than usual. How much money do you 
get for school teaching ?” 

“ Five hundred dollars.” 

” Is that all ? What do you do with it ?” 

“ Support my mother and brother.” 

“ And yourself also ?” 

“ Oh! yes.” 

“ She can’t do it !” exclaimed Duff Salter inwardly ; 
“ that director comes in the case. Miss Podge, how 
old is your brother ?” 

“ Twenty-four. He’s my junior,” she said archly. 
“ I’m old.” 

‘‘ Why do you support a man twenty-four years old ? 
Did he meet with an accident ?” 

“ He was taken sick, and will never be well,” an- 
swered Podge warily. 

“ Excuse me !” exclaimed Duff Salter, “ was it con- 
stitutional disease ? You know I am interested.” 

“ No, sir. He was misled. A woman, much older 
than himself, infatuated him while a boy, and he mar- 
ried her, and she broke his health and ruined him.” 

Podge’s eyes fell for the first time. 

Duff Salter grasped her hand. 

“ And you tell me!” he exclaimed, “ that you keep 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 199 


three grown people on five hundred dollars a year ? 
Don’t you get help from any other quarter ?” 

“ Agnes has given me board for a hundred dollars a 
year,” said Podge, “ but times have changed with her 
now, and money is scarce. She would take other 
boarders, but public opinion is against her on all sides. 
It’s against me too. But for love we would have 
separated long ago.” 

Podge’s tears came. 

“ What right had you,” exclaimed Duff Salter, rather 
angrily, ” to maintain a whole family on the servitude 
of your young body, wearing its roundness down to 
bone, exciting your nervous system, and inviting 
premature age upon a nature created for a longer girl- 
hood, and for the solace of love ?” 

She did not feel the anger in his tones ; it seemed 
like protection, for which she had hungered. 

” Why, sir, all women must support their poor kin.” 

” Men don’t do it !” exclaimed Duff Salter, pushing 
aside his gray apron of beard to see her more dis- 
tinctly. “ Did that brother who rushed in vicious 
precocity to maintain another and a wicked woman 
ever think of relieving you from hard labor ?” 

” He never could be anything less to me than 
brother !” exclaimed Podge ; “ but, Mr. Salter, if that 
was only all I had to trouble me ! Oh, sir, work is oc- 
cupation, but work harassed with care for others be- 
comes unreal. I cannot sleep, thinking for Agnes. I 
cannot teach, my head throbs so. That river, so cold 
and impure, going along by the wharves, seems to suck 
and plash all day in my ears, as we see and hear it now. 
At my desk I seem to see those low shores and woods 


200 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


and marshes, on the other side, and the chatter of 
children, going all day, laps and eddies up like dirty 
waves between me and that indistinct boundary. X am 
floating on the river current, drowning as I feel, reach- 
ing out for nothing, for nothing is there. All day long 
it is so. I was the best teacher in my rank, with cer- 
tainty of promotion. I feel that I am losing confi- 
dence. It is the river, the river, and has been so since 
it gave up those dead bodies to bring us only ghosts 
and desolation.” 

“ It was a faithful witness,” spoke Duff Salter, still 
harsh, as if under an inner influence. “Yes, a boy — a 
little boy such as you teach at school — had the strength 
to break the solid shield of ice under which the river 
held up the dead and bring the murder out. Do you 
ever think of that as you hear a spectral river surge 
and buoy upward, whose waves are made by children’s 
murmurs — innocent children haunting the guilty ?” 

“Do you mean me, Mr. Salter? Nothing haunts 
me but care. ” 

“ I have been haunted by a ghost,” continued Duff 
Salter. “ Yes, the ghost of my playmate has come to 
my threshold and peeped on me sitting there inatten- 
tive to his right to vengeance. We shall all be haunted 
till we give our evidence for the dead. No rest will 
come till that is done.” 

“I must go,” cried Podge Byerly. “You terrify 

^ _ 9 9 

me. 

“ Tell me,” asked Duff Salter in a low tone, “ has 
Andrew Zane been seen by Agnes Wilt since he 
escaped ?” 

“ Don’t ask me.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


201 


“ Tell me, and I will give you a sum of money which 
shall get you rest for years. Open your mind to me, 
and I will send you to Europe. Your brother shall be 
I my brother ; your invalid mother will receive abundant 
care. I will even ask you to love me !” 

An instant’s blushes overspread Podge’s worn, pale 
face, and an expression of restful joy. Then recurring 
indignation made her pale again to the very roots of 
her golden hair. 

“ Betray my friend !” she exclaimed. “ Never, till 
she will give me leave.” 

” I have lost my confidence in you both,” said Duff 
Salter coldly, releasing Podge’s arm. “ You have 
been so indifferent in the face of this crime and public 
opinion as to receive your lovers in the very parlor 
where my dead friend lay. Agnes has admitted it by 
silence. I have seen your lover releasing you from 
his arms. Miss Byerly, I thought you artless, even in 
your arts, and only the dupe, perhaps, of a stronger 
woman. I hoped that you were pure. You have made 
me a man of suspicion and indifference again.” His 
face grew graver, yet unbelieving and hard. 

Podge fled from his side with alarm ; he saw her 
handkerchief staunching her tears, and people watch- 
ing her as she nearly ran along the sidewalk. 

“ Jericho ! Jerichoo ! Jer — ” 

Duff Salter did not finish the sneeze, but with a long 
face called for a boat and rower to take him across to 
Treaty Island. 

Podge arrived at school just as the bell was ringing, 
and, still in nervousness and tears, took her place in her 
division while the Bible was read. She saw the princi- 


202 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


pal’s eye upon her as she took off her bonnet and moist- 
ened her face, and the boys looked up a minute or two 
inquiringly, but soon relapsed to their individual selfish- 
ness. When the glass sashes dividing the rooms were 
closed and the recitations began, the lapping sound of 
the river started anew. A film grew on her eyes, and 
in it appeared the distant Jersey and island shore, with 
the uncertain boundary of point, cove, and marsh, like 
a misty cold line, cheerless and void of life or color, as 
it was every day, yet standing there as if it merely came 
of right and was the river’s true border, and was not to 
be hated as such. Podge strained to look through the 
illusion, and walked down the aisle once, where it 
seemed to be, and touched the plaster of the wall. She 
had hardly receded when it reappeared, and all be- 
tween it and her mind was merely empty river, wallow- 
ing and lapping and sucking and subsiding, as if 
around submerged piers, or wave was relieving wave 
from the weight of floating things like rafts, or logs, or 
buoys, or bodies. Into this wide waste of muddy rip- 
ples every sound in the school-room swam, and also 
sights and colors, till between her eye-lash and that 
filmy distant margin nothing existed but a freshet, alive 
yet with nothing, eddying around with purposeless 
power, and still moving onward with an under force. 
The open book in her hand appeared like a great white 
wharf, or pier, covered with lime and coal in spots and 
places, and pushed forward into this hissing, rippling, 
exclaiming deluge, which washed its base and spread 
beyond. Podge could barely read a question in the 
book, and the sound of her voice was like gravel or 
sand pushed off the wharf into the river and swallowed 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 203 


there. She thought she heard an answer in a muddy 
tone and gave the question out again, and there seemed 
to be laughter, as if the waters, or what was drowned in 
them, chuckled and purled, going along. She raised 
her eyes above the laughers, and there the boundary 
line of Jersey stood defined, and all in front of it was 
the drifting Delaware. It seemed to her that boys 
were darting to and fro and swapping seats, and one 
boy had thrown a handful of beans. She walked down 
the aisle as if into water, wading through pools and 
waves of boys, who plashed .and gurgled around her. 
She walked back again, and a surf of boys was thrown 
at her feet. The waters rose and licked and spilled 
and flowed onward again. Podge felt a sense of 
strangling, as if going down, in a hollow gulf of re- 
sounding wave, and shouted : 

“ Help ! Save me ! Save me !” 

She heard a voice like the principal teacher’s, say in 
a lapping, watery way, “ Miss Byerly, what is the 
meaning of this ? Your division is in disorder. No- 
body has recited. Unless you are ill I must suspend 
you and call another teacher here.” 

“ Help ! I’m floating off upon the river. Save me ! 
I drown ! I drown !” 

The scholars were all up and excited. The principal 
motioned another lady teacher to come, and laid 
Podge’s head in the other’s lap. 

“ Is it brain fever ?” he asked. 

“ She has been under great excitement,” Podge 
heard the other lady say. “ The Zane murder oc- 
curred in her family. Last night, I have been told, 
Miss Byerly refused Mr. Bunn, our principal school 


204 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


director, and a man of large means, who had long been 
in love with her.” 

“ Where is he ?” said the principal. 

” I heard it from his sister,” said the other lady. 
“ Mortified at her refusal, because confident that she 
would accept him, he sailed this day for Europe.” 

These were the last words Podge Byerly heard. 
Then it seemed that the waters closed over her head. 

Agnes, left alone in the homestead, had a few days 
of perfect relief, except from anonymous letters and 
newspaper clippings delivered by mail. That refined 
handwriting which had steadily poured out the venom 
of some concealed hostility survived all other corre- 
spondence — delicate as the graceful circles of the tiniest 
fish-hooks whose points and barbs enter deepest in the 
flesh. 

” Whom can this creature be ?” asked Agnes, bring- 
ing up her strong mind from its trouble. “ I can have 
made no such bitter enemy by any act of mine. A 
man would hardly pursue so light a purpose with such 
stability. There is more than jealousy in it ; it is sin- 
cere hate, drawn, I should think, from a deep social 
or mental resentment, and enraged because I do not 
sink under my troubles. Yes, this must be a woman 
who believes me innocent but wishes my ruin. Some 
one, perhaps, who is sinning unsuspected, and, in her 
envy of another and purer one, gloats in the scandal 
which does not justly stain me. The anonymous 
letter,” thought Agnes, “ is a malignant form of con- 
science, after all !” 

But life, as it was growing to be in the Zane house, 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 205 


was hardly worth living. Podge Byerly was broken 
down and dangerously ill at her mother’s little house. 
All of Agnes’s callers had dropped off, and she felt 
that she could no longer worship, except as a show, at 
Van de Lear’s church ; but this deprivation only deep- 
ened Agnes’s natural devotion. Duff Salter saw her 
once, and oftener heard her praying, as the strong wail 
of it ascending through the house pierced even his- 
ears. 

“ That woman,” said Duff, “ is wonderfully armed ; 
with beauty, courage, mystery, witchery, she might 
almost deceive a God.” 

The theory that the house was haunted confirmed 
the other theory that a crime rested upon its inmates. 

“ Why should there be a ghost unless there had been 
a murder?” asked the average gossip and Fishtowner, 
to whom the marvellous was certain and the real to be 
inferred from it. Duff Salter believed in the ghost, as 
Agnes was satisfied ; he had become unsocial and suspi- 
cious in look, and after two or three days of absence 
from the house, succeeding Podge’s disappearance, 
entered it with his new servant. 

Agnes did not see the servant at all for some days, 
though knowing that he had come. The cook said he 
was an accommodating man, ready to help her at any- 
thing, and of no “ airs.” He entered and went, the 
cook said, by the back gate, always wiped his feet at 
the door, and appeared like a person of not much 
“ bringing up.” One day Agnes had to descend to 
the kitchen, and there she saw a strange man eating 
with the cook ; a rough person with a head of dark red 
hair and grayish red beard all round his mouth and 


20 6 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 

under his chin. She observed that he was one-legged, 
and used a common wooden crutch on the side of the 
wooden leg. Two long scars covered his face, and one 
shaggy eyebrow was higher than the other. 

“ I axes your pardon,” said the man ; “ me and 
cook takes our snack when we can, mum.” 

A day or two after Agnes passed the same man 
again at the landing on the stairway. He bowed, and 
said in his Scotch or Irish dialect, 

” God bless ye, mum !” 

Agnes thought to herself that she had not given the 
man credit for a certain rough grace which she now 
perceived, and as she turned back to look at him he 
was looking at her with a fixed, incomprehensible ex- 
pression. 

“ Am I being watched ?” thought Agnes. 

One day, in early June, as Agnes entered the parlor, 
she found Reverend Silas Van de Lear there. At the 
sight of this good old man, the patriarch of Kensing- 
ton, by whom she had been baptized and received into 
the communion, Agnes Wilt felt strongly moved, the 
more that in his eyes was a regard of sympathy just a 
little touched with doubt. 

“My daughter !” exclaimed the old man, in his 
clear, practised articulation, “you are daily in my 
prayers !” 

The tears came to Agnes, and as she attempted to 
wipe them away the good old gentleman drew her head 
to his shoulder. 

“ I cannot let myself think any evil of you, dear sis- 
ter, in God’s chastising providence,” said the clergy- 
man. “ Among the angels, in the land that is awaiting 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 207 


me, I had expected to see the beautiful face which has 
so often encouraged my preaching, and looked up at 
me from Sabbath-school and church. You do not 
come to our meetings any more. My dear, let us pray 
together in your affliction.” 

The old man knelt in the parlor and raised his voice 
in prayer — a clear, considerate, judicial, sincere prayer, 
such as age and long authority gave him the right to 
address to heaven. He was not unacquainted with 
sorrow himself ; his children had given him much con- 
cern, and even anguish, and in Calvin was his last hope. 
A thread of wicked commonplace ran through them 
all ; his sterling nature in their composition was lost 
like a grain of gold in a mass of alloy. They had noth- 
ing ideal, no reverence, no sense of delicacy. Taking 
to his arms a face and form that pleased him, the min- 
ister had not ingrafted upon it one babe of any 
divinity ; that coarser matrix received the sacred flame 
as mere mud extinguishes the lightning. He fell into 
this reminiscence of personal disappointment unwit- 
tingly, as in the process of his prayer he strove to com- 
fort Agnes. The moment he did so the cold magis- 
tracy of the prayer ceased, and his voice began to trem- 
ble, and there ran between the ecclesiastic and his pa- 
rishioner the electric spark of mutual grief and under- 
standing. 

The old man hesitated, and became choked with 
emotion. 

As he stopped, and the pause was prolonged, Agnes 
herself, by a powerful inner impulsion, took up the 
prayer aloud, and carried it along like inspiration. 
She was not of the strong-minded type of women, rather 


208 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


of the wholly loving ; but the deep afflictions of the past 
few months, working down into the crevices and cells 
of her nature, had struck the impervious bed of piety, 
and so deluged it with, sorrow and the lonely sense of 
helplessness that now a cry like an appeal to judgment 
broke from her, not despair nor accusation, but an ap- 
peal to the very equity of God. 

It arose so frankly and in such majesty, finding its 
own aptest words by its unconscious instinct, that the 
aged minister was presently aware of a preternatural 
power at his side. Was this woman a witch, genius, 
demon, or the very priestess of God, he asked. 

The solemn prayer ranged into his own experience 
by that touch of nature which unlocks the secret spring 
of all, being true unto its own deep needs. The minis- 
ter was swept along in the resistless current of the 
prayer, and listened as if he were the penitent and she 
the priest. As the petition died away in Agnes’s phys- 
ical exhaustion, the venerable man thought to himself : 

“ When Jacob wrestled all night at Peniel, his angel 
must have been a woman like this ; for she has power 
with God and with men !” 

CHAPTER VII. 

FOCUS. 

Calvin Van de Lear had been up-stairs with Duff 
Salter, and on his way out had heard the voice of 
Agnes Wilt praying. He slipped into the back parlor 
and listened at the crevice of the folding-door until his 
father had given the pastoral benediction and departed. 
Then with cool effrontery Calvin walked into the front 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


209 


parlor, where Agnes was sitting by the slats of the 
nearly darkened window. 

“ Pardon me, Agnes,” he said. ” I was calling on 
the deaf old gentleman up-stairs, and perceiving that 
devotions were being conducted here, stopped that I ' 
might not interrupt them.” * 

Calvin’s commonplace nature had hardly been dazed 
by Agnes’s prayer. He was only confirmed in the idea 
that she was a woman of genius, and would take half 
the work of a pastor off his hands. In the light of 
both desire and convenience she had, therefore, appre- 
ciated in his eyes. To marry her, become the proprie- 
tor of her snug home and ravishing person, and send her 
off to pray with the sick and sup with the older women 
of the flock, seemed to him such a comfortable con- 
summation as to have Heaven’s especial approval. 
Thus do we deceive ourselves when the spirit of God 
has departed from us, even in youth, and construe our 
dreams of selfishness to be glimmerings of a purer life. 

Calvin was precocious in assurance, because, in ad- 
dition to being unprincipled, he was in a manner or- 
dained by election and birthright to rule over Kensing- 
ton. His father had been one of those strong-willed, 
clear-visioned, intelligent young Eastern divinity stu- 
dents who brought to a place of more voluptuous and 
easy burgher society the secular vigor of New England 
pastors. Being always superior and always sincere, 
his rule had been ungrumblingly accepted. Another 
generation, at middle age, found him over them as he 
had been over their parents — a righteous, intrepid Prot- 
estant priest, good at denunciation, counsel, humor, or 
sympathy. The elders and deacons never thought of 


210 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


objecting to anything after he had insisted upon it, and 
in this spirit the whole church had heard submissively 
that Calvin Van de Lear was to be their next pastor. 
This, of course, was conditional upon his behavior, 
and all knew that his father would be the last man to 
impose an injurious person on the church ; they had 
little idea that “ Cal.” Van de Lear was devout, but 
took the old man’s word that grace grew more and 
more in the sons of the Elect, and the young man had 
already professed “ conviction,” and voluntarily been 
received into the church. There he assumed, like an 
heir-apparent, the vicarship of the congregation, and it 
rather delighted his father that his son so promptly 
and complacently took direction of things, made his 
quasi pastoral rounds, led prayer-meetings, and exhort- 
ed Sunday-schools and missions. A priest knows the 
heart of his son no more than a king, and is less suspi- 
cious cf him. The king’s son may rebel from deferred 
expectation ; the priest’s son can hardly conspire 
against his father’s pulpit. In the minister’s family 
the line between the world and the faith is a wavering 
one ; religion becomes a matter of course, and yet is 
without the mystery of religion as elsewhere, so that 
wife and sons regard ecclesiastical ambition as meritori- 
ous, whether the heart be in it piously or profanely. 
Calvin Van de Lear was in the church fold of his own 
accord, and his father could no more read that son’s 
heart than any other member’s. Indeed, the good old 
man was especially obtuse in the son’s case, from his 
partiality, and thus grew up together on the same root 
the flower of piety and hypocrisy, the tree and the 
sucker. 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


21 1 


“ Calvin,” replied Agnes, “ I do not object to your 
necessary visits here. Your father is very dear to 
me.” 

“But can’t I return to the subject we last talked 
of ?” asked the young man, shrewdly. 

“ No. That is positively forbidden.” 

“Agnes,” continued Calvin, “you must know I 
love you !” 

Agnes sank to her seat again with a look of resigna- 
tion. 

“ Calvin,” she said, “ this is not the time. I am 
not the person for such remarks. I have just risen 
from my knees ; my eyes are not in this world.” 

“ You will be turning nun if this continues.” 

“I am in God’s hands,” said Agnes. “Yet the 
hour is dark with me.” 

“ Agnes, let me lift some of your burden upon my- 
self. You don’t hate me ?” 

“ No. I wish you every happiness, Calvin.” 

“ Is there nothing you long for — nothing earthly 
and within the compass of possibility?” 

“ Yes, yes !” Agnes arose and walked across the 
floor almost unconsciously, with the palms of her hands 
held high together above her head. As she walked to 
and fro the theological student perceived a change so 
extraordinary in her appearance since his last visit 
that he measured her in his cool, worldly gaze as a 
butcher would compute the weight of a cow on chance 
reckoning. 

“ What is it, dear Agnes ?” 

He spoke with a softness of tone little in keeping 
with his unfeeling, vigilant face. 


212 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


“ Oh, give me love ! Now, if ever, it is love ! 
Love only, that can lift me up and cleanse my soul !” 

“ Love lies everywhere around you,” said the young 
man. “ You trample it under your feet. My heart — 
many hearts — have felt the cruel treatment. Agnes, 
you must love also.” 

“ I try to do so,” she exclaimed, “ but it is not the 
perfect love that casteth out fear ! God knows I wish 
it was.” 

Her eyes glanced down, and a blush, sudden and 
deep, spread over her features. The young man lost 
nothing of all this, but with alert analysis took every 
expression and action in.” 

“ May I become your friend if greater need arises, 
Agnes ? Do not repulse me. At the worst— I swear 
it ! — I will be your instrument, your subject.” 

Agnes sat in the renewed pallor of profound fear. 
God, on whom she had but a moment before called, 
seemed to have withdrawn His face. Her black ring- 
lets, smoothed upon her noble brow in wavy lines, gave 
her something of a Roman matron’s look ; her eye- 
brows, dark as the eyes beneath that now shrank back 
yet shone the larger, might have befitted an Eastern 
queen. Lips of unconscious invitation, and features 
produced in their wholeness which bore out a character 
too perfect not to have lived sometime in the realms of 
the great tragedies of life, made Agnes in her sorrow 
peerless yet. 

“ Go, Calvin !” she said, with an effort, her eyes 
still upon the floor ; “ if you would ever do me any aid, 
go now !” 

As he passed into the passageway Calvin Van de 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 


213 


Lear ran against a man with a crutch and a wooden 
leg, who looked at him from under a head of dark-red 
hair, and in a low voice cursed his awkwardness. The 
man bent to pick up his crutch, and Calvin observed 
that he was badly scarred and had one eyebrow higher 
than the other. 

“ Who are you, fellow ?” asked Calvin, surprised. 

“I’m Dogcatcher !” said the man. “When ye 
see me coming, take the other side of the street.” 

Calvin felt cowed, not so much at these mysterious 
words as at a hard, lowering look in the man’s face, 
like especial dislike. 

Agnes Wilt, still sitting in the parlor, saw the lame 
servant pass her door, going out, and he looked in and 
touched his hat, and paused a minute. Something 
graceful and wistful together seemed to be in his bear- 
ing and countenance. 

“ Anything for me ?” asked Agnes. 

“ Nothing at all, mum ! When there’s nobody by 
to do a job, call on Mike.” 

He still seemed to tarry, and in Agnes’s nervous 
condition a mysterious awe came over her ; the man’s 
gaze had a dread fascination that would not let her 
drop her eyes. As he passed out of sight and shut the 
street door behind him Agnes felt a fainting feeling, 
as if an apparition had looked in upon her and vanished 
— the apparition, if of anything, of him who had lain 
dead in that very parlor — the stern, enamored master 
of the house whose fatherhood in a fateful moment had 
turned to marital desire, and crushed the luck of all 
the race of Zanes. 

Duff Salter was sitting at his writing table, with an 


214 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


open snuff-box before him, and, as Calvin Van de Lear 
entered his room, Duff took a large pinch of snuff and 
shoved the tablets forward. Calvin wrote on them a 
short sentence. As Duff Salter read it he started to 
his feet and sneezed with tremendous energy : 

“ Jeri-cho ! Jericho ! Jerry-cho-o-o !” 

He read the sentence again, and whispered very low : 

“ Can’t you be mistaken ?” 

“ As sure as you sit there !” wrote Calvin Van de 
Lear. 

“ What is your inference ?” wrote Duff Salter. 

“ Seduction !” 

The two men looked at each other silently a few 
minutes, Duff Salter in profound astonishment, Calvin 
Van de Lear with an impudent smile. 

“ And so religious !” wrote Duff Salter. 

“That is always incidental to the condition,” an- 
swered Calvin. 

“ It must be a great blow to your affection ?” 

“ Not at all,” scrawled the minister’s son. “ It 
gives me a sure thing.” 

“ Explain that !” 

“ I will throw the marriage mantle over her. She 
will need me now !” 

“ But you would not take a wife out of such a situa- 
tion ?” 

“ Oh ! yes. She will be as handsome as ever, and 
only half as proud.” 

Duff Salter walked up and down the floor and 
stroked his long beard, and his usually benevolent ex- 
pression was now dark and ominous, as if with gloom 
and anger. He spoke in a low tone as if not aware 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


215 


that he was heard, and his voice sounded as if he also 
did not hear it, and could not, therefore, give it pitch 
or intonation : 

“ Is this the best of old Kensington ? This is the 
East ! Where I dreamed that life was pure as the water 
from the dear old pump that quenched my thirst in 
boyhood — not bitter as the alkali of the streams of the 
plains, nor turbid like the rills of the Arkansas. I 
pined to leave that life of renegades, half-breeds, squaws, 
and nomads to bathe my soul in the clear fountains of 
civilization, — to live where marriage was holy and piety 
sincere. I find, instead, mystery, blood, dishonor, 
hypocrisy, and shame. Let me go back ! The rough 
frontier suits me best. If I can hear so much wicked- 
ness, deaf as I am, let me rather be an unsocial hermit 
in the woods, hearing nothing lower than thunder !” 

As Duff Salter went to his dinner that day he looked 
at Agnes sitting in her place, so ill at ease, and said to 
himself, 

“ It is true.” 

Another matter of concern was on Mr. Duff Salter’s 
mind — his serving-man. Such an unequal servant he 
had never seen — at times full of intelligence and snap, 
again as dumb as the bog-trotters of Ireland. 

” What was the matter with you yesterday ?” asked 
the deaf man of Mike one day. 

“ Me head, yer honor !” 

” What ails your head ?” 

“ Vare r tigo !” 

“ How came that ?” 

“ Falling out of a ship !” 


21 6 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 


“ What did you strike but water ?” 

“ Wood ; it nearly was the death of me. For weeks 
I was wid a cracked head and a cracked leg, yer 
honor !” 

Still there was something evasive about the man, and 
he had as many moods and lights as a sea Proteus, ugly 
and common, like that batrachian order, but often en- 
kindled and exceedingly satisfactory as a servant. He 
often forgot the place where he left off a certain day’s 
work, and it had to be recalled to him. He was irregu- 
lar, too, in going and coming, and was quite as likely 
to come when not wanted as not to be on the spot when 
due and expected. Duff Salter made up his mind that 
all the Eastern people must have bumped their heads 
and became subject to vertigo. 

One day Duff Salter received this note : 

“ Mr. Deaf Duff : Excuse the familiarity, but the 
coincidence amuses me. I want you to make me a visit 
this evening after dark at my quarters in my brother, 
Knox Van de Lear’s house, on Queen Street nearly 
opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the 
orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect — there being signs 
of it in the milky way, — you will assist me in an obser- 
vation that will stagger you on account of its results. 
Do not come out until dark, and ask at my brother’s 
den for Cal.” 

“ I will not be in to-night, Mike,” exclaimed Duff 
Salter a little while afterward. “ You can have all the 
evening to yourself. Where do you spend your spare 
time.” 

“ On Traity Island,” replied Mike with a grin. 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


217 


“ I doesn’t like Kinsington afther dark. They say it 
has ghosts, sur.” 

“ But only the ghosts of they killed as they crossed 
from Treaty Island.” 

“ Sure enough ! But I’ve lost belafe in ghosts s ,v 
they have become so common. Everybody belaves . 
thim in Kinsington, and I prefer to be exclusive and 
sciptical, yer honor.” 

“ Didn’t you tell me yesterday that you believed in 
spirits going and coming and hoping and waiting, and 
it gave you great comfort ?” 

‘‘Did I, sur? I forgit it inthirely. It must have 
been a bad day for my vartigo.” 

Duff Salter looked at his man long and earnestly, 
and from head to foot, and the inspection appeared to 
please him. 

” Mike,” he said, in his loud, deafish voice, “ I am 
going to cure you of your vertigo.” 

“ Whin, dear Mister Salter.” 

“ Perhaps to-morrow,” remarked Duff Salter sig- 
nificantly. ” I shall have a man here who will either 
confer it on you permanently or cure you instantly.” 

Duff Salter put on his hat, took his stick, and drew 
the curtains down. 

Mike was sitting at the writing table arranging some 
models of vessels and steam tugs as his employer 
turned at the doorway and looked back, and, with a 
countenance more waggish than exasperated, Duff Sal- 
ter shook his cane at the unobservant Irishman, and 
sagely gestured with his head. 

Agnes was about to take the head of the tea-table as 
he came down the stairs. 


218 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


“ No,” motioned Duff Salter, and pointed out of 
doors. 

He gave a slight examination to Agnes, so delicate 
as to be almost unnoticed, though she perceived it. 

Duff sat at the tea side and wrote on his tablets : 

“ How is little Podge coming on ?” 

“ Growing better,” replied Agnes, “ but she will be 
unfit to teach her school for months. Kind friends 
have sent her many things.” 

Duff Salter waited a little while, and wrote : 

“ I wish I could leave everybody happy behind me 
when I go away.” 

“ Are you going soon ?” 

“ I am going at once,” wrote Duff Salter with a sud- 
den decision. “ I am not trusted by anybody here, 
and my work is over.” 

Agnes sat a little while in pain and wistfulness. 
Finally she wrote : 

“ There is but one thing which prevents our perfect 
trust in you ; it is your distrust of us.” 

“ I am distrustful — too much so,” answered, in 
writing, the deaf man. “ A little suspicion soon over- 
spreads the whole nature, and yet, I think, one can be 
generous even with suspicion. Among the disciples 
were a traitor, a liar, a coward, and a doubter ; but 
none upbraid the last, poor Thomas, and he is sainted 
in our faith. Do you know that suspicion made me 
deaf? Yes; if we mock Nature with distrust, she stops 
our ears. Do you not remember what happened to 
Zacharias, the priest ? He would not believe the angel 
who announced that his wife would soon become a 
mother, and for his unbelief was strickeh dumb !” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 


219 


The deaf guest had either stumbled into this illustra 
tion, or written it with full design. He looked at 
Agnes, and the pale and purple colors came and went 
upon her face as she bent her body forward over the 
table. Duff Salter arose and spoke with that lost 
voice, like one in a vacuum, while he folded his tablet. 

“ Agnes,” he said, “ it has been cruel to a man of 
such a sceptical soul as mine to educate him back from 
the faith he had acquired to the unfaith he had tried to 
put behind him. Why did you do it ? The suppres- 
sion of the truth is never excusable. The secret you 
might have scattered with a word, when suspicion 
started against you, is now diffused through every 
family and rendezvous in Kensington.” 

She looked miserable enough, and still received the 
stab of her guest’s magisterial tongue like an affliction 
from heaven. 

“ I had also become infected with this imputation,” 
continued Duff Salter. “ All things around you looked 
sinister fora season. A kind Providence has dispelled 
these black shadows, and I see you now the victim 
of an immeasurable mistake. Your weakness and 
another’s obstinacy have almost ruined you. I shall 
save you with a cruel hand ; let the remorse be his who 
hoped to outlive society and its natural suspicions by a 
mere absence.”' 

“ I will not let you upbraid him,” spoke Agnes Wilt. 
“ My weakness was the whole mistake.” 

“ Agnes,” said the grave, bearded man, “ you must 
walk through Kensington to-morrow with me in the 
sight of the whole world.” 

She looked up and around a moment, and staggered 


220 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


toward a sofa, but would have fallen had not Duff Salter 
caught her in his arms and placed her there with ten- 
der strength. He whispered in her ear ; 

“ Courage, little mother /” 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A REAL ROOF-TREE. 

Ringing the bell at the low front step of a two-story 
brick dwelling, Duff Salter was admitted by Mr. Knox 
Van deLear, the proprietor, a tall, plain, commonplace 
man, who scarcely bore one feature of his venerable 
father. “Come in, Mr. Salter,” bellowed Knox, 
“ tea’s just a-waitin’ for you. Pap’s here. You know 
Cal, certain ! This is my good lady, Mrs. Van de 
Lear. Lottie, put on the oysters and waffles ! Don’t 
forgit the catfish. There’s nothing like catfish out of 
the Delaware, Mr. Salter.” 

“ Particularly if they have a corpse or two to flavor 
them,” said Calvin Van de Lear in a low tone. 

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear, a fine, large, blonde lady, 
took the head of the table. She had a sweet, timid 
voice, quite out of quantity with her bone and flesh, 
and her eyelashes seemed to be weak, for they closed to- 
gether often and in almost regular time, and the deli- 
cate lids were quite as noticeable as h*er bashful blue 
eyes. 

“ Lottie,” said Rev. Silas Van de Lear, “ I came in 
to-night with a little chill upon me. At my age chills 
are the tremors from other wings hovering near. 
Please let me have the first cup of coffee hot.” 

“ Certainly, papa,” said the hostess, making haste 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


221 


to fill his cup. “ You don’t at all feel apprehensive, 
do you ?” 

“ No,” said the old man, with his teeth chattering. 
“ I haven’t had apprehensions for long back. -Noth- 
ing but confidence.” 

“ Oh, pap !” put in Knox Van de Lear, “ you’ll be 
a preachin’ when I’m a granddaddy. You never mean 
to die. Eat a waffle !” 

“ My children,” said the old man, “ death is over-due 
with me. It gives me no more concern than the last 
hour shall give all of us. I had hoped to live for 
three things : to see my new church raised ; to see my 
son Calvin ready to take my place ; to see my neigh- 
bor, Miss Wilt, whom I have seen grow up under my 
eye from childhood, and fair as a lily, brush the dew 
of scandal from her skirts and resume her place in our 
church, the handmaid of God again.” 

“ Amen, old man !” spoke Calvin irreverently, 
holding up his plate for oysters. 

‘‘Why, Cal,” exclaimed the hostess, closing her 
delicately-tinted eyelids till the long lashes rested on 
the cheek, “ why don’t you call papa more softly ?” 

“ My son,” spoke the little old gentleman between 
his chatterings, ** in the priestly office you must avoid 
abruptness. Be direct at all important times, but 
neither familiar nor abrupt. I cannot name for you a 
model of address like Agnes Wilt. ” 

“ Isn’t she beautiful !” said Mrs. Knox. “ Do you 
Kink she can be deceitful, papa ?” 

“ I have no means to pierce the souls of people, 
Lottie, more than others. I don’t believe she is 
wicked, but I draw that from my reason and human 


222 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


faith. That woman was a pillar of strength in my 
Sabbath-school. May the Lord bring her forth from 
the furnace refined by fire, and punish them who may 
have persecuted her !” 

“ Cal is going into a decline on her account, ” said 
Knox. “ I know it by seeing him eat waffles. She 
refused Cal one day, and he came home and eat all the 
cold meat in the house.” 

” Mr. Salter,” the hostess said, raising her voice, 
“ you have a beautiful woman for a landlady. Is she 
well ?” 

“ Very melancholy,” said Duff Salter. “ Why don’t 
you visit her ?” 

“ Really,” said the hostess, ” there is so much feel- 
ing against Agnes that, considering Papa Van de Lear’s 
position in Kensington, I have been afraid. Agnes is 
quite too clever for me !” 

“ I hope she will be,” said Duff Salter, relapsing to 
his coffee. 

‘‘He didn’t hear what you said, Lot,” exclaimed 
Calvin. “ The old man has to guess at what we halloo 
at him.” 

” Have you appraised the estate of the late William 
Zane ?” asked the minister, with his bold pulpit voice, 
which Salter could hear easily. 

“Yes,” replied the deaf guest. “It comes out 
strong. It is worth, clear of everything and not in- 
cluding doubtful credits, one hundred and eighty thou- 
sand dollars.” 

“ That is the largest estate in Kensington,” ex- 
claimed the clergyman. 

“ I shall release it all within one week to Miss 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 223 


Agnes,” said Duff Salter. “You are too old, Mr. 
Van de Lear, to manage it. I have finished my work 
as co-executor with you. The third executor is Miss 
Wilt. With the estate in her hands she will change 
the tone of public opinion in Kensington, perhaps, and 
the fugitive heir must return or receive no money from 
the woman he has injured !” 

” I am entirely of your opinion,” said Reverend 
Mr. Van de Lear. “ Agnes was independent before ; 
this will make her powerful, and she needs all the 
power she can get to meet this insensate suburban 
opinion. When I was a young man, commencing to 
minister here, I had rivals enough, and deeply sympa- 
thize with those who must defend themselves against 
the embattled gossip of a suburban society.” 

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear opened and closed her eyes 
with a saintly sort of resignation. 

“ I am glad for Agnes,” she said. ‘‘ But I fear the 
courts will not allow her, suspected as she is, to have 
the custody of so much wealth that has descended to 
her through the misfortunes of others, if not by 
crimes.” 

‘‘You are right, Lot,” said Calvin. ‘‘Her little 
game may be to get a husband as soon as she can, who 
will resist a trustee’s appointment by the courts.” 

“ Can she get a husband, Cal ?” 

“ Oh, yes ! She’s lightning ! There’s old Salter, 
rich as a Jew. She’s smart enough to capture him and 
add all he has to all that was coming to Andrew Zane.” 

Mr. Salter drew up his napkin and sneezed into it a 
soft articulation of ‘‘ Jericho ! Jericho !” 

“ Cal, don’t you think you have some chance there 


224 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


yet ?” asked Knox Van de Lear. “ I hoped you would 
have won Aggy long ago. It’s a better show than I 
ever had. You see I have to be at work at six o’clock, 
winter and summer, and stay at the bookbindery all 
day long, and so it goes the year round.” 

“ Indeed, it is so !” exclaimed the hostess, slowly 
shutting down her silken lids of pink. ‘ ‘ My poor hus- 
band goes away from me while I still sleep in the dark 
of dawn ; he only returns at supper.” 

“ Well, haven’t you got brother Cal ?” asked the 
bookbinder. “ He’s better company than I am, Lot- 
tie.” 

“But Calvin is in love with Miss Wilt,” said the 
lady, softly unclosing her eyes. 

” No,” coolly remarked Calvin, “ I am not in love 
with her. You know that, Lottie.” 

“ Well, Calvin, dear, you would be if you thought 
she was pure and clear of crime.” 

“ Don’t ask me foolish questions !” said Calvin. 

The lady at the head of the table wore a pretty smile 
which she shut away under her eyelids again and again, 
and looked gently at Calvin. 

“ Dear Agnes !” ejaculated Mrs. Knox, “ I never 
blamed her so much as that bold little creature, Podge 
Byerly ! No one could make any impression upon 
Agnes’s confidence until that bright little thing went to 
board with her. It is so demoralizing to take these 
working-girls, shop-girls and school-teachers, in where 
religious influences had prevailed ! They became in- 
separable ; Agnes had to entertain such company as 
Miss Byerly brought there, and it produced a lowering 
of tone. She looked around her suddenly when these 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 225 


crimes were found out, and all her old mature friends 
were gone. It is so sad to lose all the wholesome in- 
fluences which protect one !” 

Duff Salter had been eating his chicken and catfish 
very gravely, and as he stopped to sneeze and apolo- 
gize he noticed that Calvin Van de Lear’s face was 
insolent in its look toward his brother’s wife. 

“ Wholesome influence, ” said Calvin, “will return 
at the news of her money, quick enough !’’ 

“ Poor dear Cal !’’ exclaimed the lady; “he is still 
madly in love !’’ 

“ My friends,’’ spoke up Duff Salter, “ your father 
is a very sick man. Let us take him to a chamber and 
send for his doctor.’’ 

Mr. Van de Lear had been neglected in this conver- 
sation ; it was now seen that he was in collapse and 
deathly pale. He leaned forward, however, from 
strong habit, to close the meal wiih a blessing, and his 
head fell forward upon the table. Duff Salter had him 
in his arms in a moment, and bore him into the little 
parlor and placed him on a sofa. 

“ Give me some music, children,’’ he murmured. 
“ Oh, my brother Salter ! I would that you could hear 
with me the rustling sounds I hear in music now ! 
There are voices in it keeping heavenly time, saying, 
* Well done ! well done ! ’ My strong, kind brother, 
let me lean upon your breast. Had we met in younger 
days I feel that we would have been very friendly with 
each other.’’ 

Duff Salter already had the meagre little man upon 
his breast, and his long, hale beard descended upon the 
pale and aged face. 


226 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Mrs. Knox Van de Lear seated herself at the piano 
and began a hymn, and Calvin Van de Lear accompanied 
her, singing bass. The old man closed his eyes on 
Duff Salter’s breast, and Mr. Knox Van de Lear went 
out softly to send for a physician. Duff Salter, look- 
ing up at a catch in the singing, saw that Calvin Van 
de Lear was leaning familiarly on the lady’s shoulder 
while he turned the leaves of the book of sacred 
music. 

“I am very sick,” said the old clergyman, still 
shaken by the chills. “ Perhaps we shall meet together 
no more. My fellow-executor, do my part in this 
world ! In all my life of serving the church and its 
Divine Master, I have first looked out for the young 
people. They are most helpless, most valuable. See 
that Sister Agnes is mercifully cared for ! If young 
Andrew Zane returns, deal gently with him too. Let 
us be kind to the dear boys, though they go astray. 
The dear, dear boys !” 

Duff Salter received the brave little man’s head again 
upon his breast, and said to himself : 

” May God speedily take him away in mercy !’* 

The doctor, returning with Knox Van de Lear, com- 
manded the minister to be instantly removed to a 
chamber, and Duff Salter, unassisted, walked up-stairs 
with him like a father carrying his infant to bed. As 
they placed the wasted figure away beneath the cover- 
lets, he put his arm around Duff Salter’s neck. 

“ Brother,” he said hoarsely, the chill having him 
in its grasp, ” God has blessed you. Can you help my 
new church ?” 

“ I promise you,” said Duff Salter, ” that after your 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


227 


people have done their best I will give the remainder. 
It shall be built !” 

“ Now, God be praised !” whispered the dying pas- 
tor. “ And let Thy servant depart in peace.” 

I “Amen!” from somewhere, trembled through the 
chamber as Duff Salter, his feet muffled like his voice, 
in the habit of mute people who walk as they hear, 
passed down the stairway. 

Duff Salter took his seat in the dining-room, which 
was an extension of Knox Van de Lear’s plain parlor, 
and buried his face in his palms. Years ago, when a 
boy, he had attended preaching in Silas Van de Lear’s 
little chapel, and it touched him deeply that the 
nestor of the suburb was about to die ; the last of the 
staunch old pastors of the kirk who had never been 
silent when liberty was in peril. The times were not 
the same, and the old man was too brave and simple 
for the latter half of his century. As Duff Salter 
thought of many memories associated with the Rev. 
Silas Van de Lear’s residence in Kensington, he heard 
his own name mentioned. It was a lady’s voice ; 
nothing but acute sensibility could have made it so 
plain to a deaf man : 

“ Husband,” said the lady with the slumberous 
eyelids, ” go out with the pitcher and get us half a 
gallon of ale. Cal and Mr. Salter and myself are 
thirsty.” 

“ I have been for the doctor, Lottie ; let Cal go.” 

“ Cal ?” exclaimed the lady, very quietly raising her 
lashes. ” It would not do for him to go for ale ! He 
is to be the junior pastor, my dear, as soon as papa is 
buried, over the Van de Lear church.” 


228 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


“ All right,” said the tired husband, ” I’ll go. We 
must all back up Cal.” 

As soon as the door closed upon Mr. Knox Van de 
Lear, a kiss resounded through the little house, and a 
woman’s voice followed it, saying : 

” Imprudent !” 

“ Oh, bah !” spoke Calvin Van de Lear. “ Salter 
is deaf as a post. Lottie, Agnes Wilt has been 
ruined !” 

In the long pause following this remark the deaf 
man peeped through his fingers and saw the lady of the 
house kiss her husband’s brother again and again. 

“ I am so glad,” she whispered. “ Can it be true ?” 

“ It’s plain as a barn door. She’ll be a mother 
before shad have run out, or cherries come in.” 

” The proud creature ! And now, Cal dear, you 
see nothing exceptionally saint-like there ?” 

” I see shame, friendlessness, wealth, and welcome,” 
spoke the young man. “ It’s just my luck !” 

” But the deaf man ? Will he not take her part ?” 

“ No. I shall show him to-night what will cure his 
partiality. Lottie, you must let me marry her.” 

The large, blonde lady threw back her head until the 
strong, animal throat and chin stood sharply defined, 
and white and scarlet in color as the lobster’s meat. 

” Scoundrel !” she hissed, clenching Calvin’s wrist 
with an almost maniacal fury. 

At this moment a bell began to toll on the neighbor- 
ing fire company’s house, and Knox Van de Lear en- 
tered with the pitcher of ale. 

“ They’re tolling the fire bell at the news of father’s 
dying,” said Knox. 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 229 


Calvin filled a glass of ale, and exclaimed : 

“ Here’s to the next pastor of Kensington !” as he 
laughingly drained it off. • 

t “ Oh, brother Cal !” remarked the hostess as she 
softly dropped her eyelids and smiled reprovingly ; 
“ this irreverence comes of visiting Miss Agnes Wilt 
too often. I must take you in charge.” 

Duff Salter gave a furious sneeze : 

“ Jericho ! Oh ! oh ! Jericho !” 

Calvin Van de Lear closed the door between the din- 
ing-room and the parlor, and drew Duff Salter’s tablets 
from his pocket and wrote : 

” I want you to go up on the house roof with me.” 

Duff looked at him in surprise, and wrote in reply : 

“ Do you mean to throw me off ?” 

Calvin’s sallow complexion reddened a very little as 
he laughed flippantly, and stroked his dry side-whiskers 
and took the tablets again : 

“ I want you to see the ghost’s walk,” he wrote. 
“ Come along !” 

Passing the sick father’s door, Calvin led Duff Salter 
up to the garret floor, where a room with rag carpet, 
dumb-bells, boxing-gloves, theological books, and some 
pictures far from modest, disclosed the varied tastes of 
an entailed pulpit’s expectant. Calvin drew down the 
curtain of the one window and lighted a lamp. There 
was a table in the middle of the floor, and there the 
two men conducted a silent conversation on the ivory 
tablets. 

‘‘This is my room,” wrote Calvin. ‘‘I stay here 
all day when I study or enjoy myself. The governor 


230 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


doesn’t come in here to give me any advice or nose 
around. ” 

“ Is Mrs. Knox Van de Lear serious as to religious 
matters ?” 

“ Very,” wrote Calvin, sententiously, and looked at 
Duff Salter with the most open countenance he had 
ever been seen to show. Duff merely asked another 
question : 

” Has she a good handwriting ? I want to have a 
small document very neatly written.” 

Calvin went over to a trunk, unlocked it, and took 
out a bundle of what appeared to be lady’s letters, and 
selecting one, folded the address back and showed the 
chirography. 

“ Jericho ! Jerry-cho l cho ! O cho !” sneezed Duff 
Salter. “ The most admirable writing I have ever 
seen.” 

Calvin took the tablets. 

“ I have been in receipt of some sundry sums of 
money from you, Salter, to follow up this Zane mys- 
tery. I hope to be able to show you to-night that it 
has not been misin vested.” 

‘‘You have had two hundred dollars,” wrote Duff 
Salter. “ What are your conclusions ?” 

“ Andrew Zane is in Kensington.” 

“ Where?” 

“ If the block opposite are several houses belonging 
to the Zane estate. One of them stood empty until 
within a month, when a tenant unknown to the neigh- 
borhood, with small furniture and effects — evidently a 
mere servant — moved in. My brother’s wife has taken 
a deep interest in the Zane murder, and being at home 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 231 


all day, her resort is this room, where she can see, un- 
observed, the whole menage and movement in the block 
opposite.” 

“ Why did she feel so much interested ?” 

“ Honor bright !” Calvin wrote. “ Well, Mrs. Knox 
was a great admirer of the late William Zane. They 
were very intimate — some thought under engagement 
to marry. Suddenly she accepted my brother, and old 
Zane turned out to be infatuated with his ward. We 
may call it rivalry and reminiscence.” 

“ Jer-i-choo-wo !" 

Duff Salter, now full of smiles, proffered a pinch of 
snuff to his host, who declined it, but set out a bottle 
of brandy in reciprocal friendship. 

“ Go on,” indicated Salter to the tablets. 

” One morning, just before daybreak, my brother’s 
wife, glancing out of this window — ” 

“ In this room, you say, before daybreak ?” 

Calvin looked viciously at Duff Salter, who merely 
smiled. 

“ She saw,” said Calvin Van de Lear, “ an object 
come out of the trap-door on Zane’s old residence and 
move under shelter of the ridge of the roof to the newly- 
tenanted dwelling in the same block, and there disap- 
pear down the similar trap.” 

” Jericho ! Jericho ! — Proceed.” 

“ It was our inference that probably Andrew Zane 
was making stealthy visits to Agnes, and we applied a 
test to her. To our astonishment we found she had 
only seen him once since the murder, and that was the 
night the bodies were discovered.” 

“ How could you extract that from a self-contained 


232 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


woman like Agnes Wilt ?” asked Duff Salter, deeply in- 
terested. 

“ We got it from Podge Byerly.” 

“ Jerusalem !” exclaimed Duff Salter aloud, knock- 
ing over the snuff-box and forgetting to sneeze. “ Mr. 
Calvin Van de Lear, it is a damned lie.” 

Calvin looked up with some surprise but more con- 
ceit. 

“ I’m a first-class eavesdropper,” he wrote, and 
held it up on the tablet to Duff’s eyes. “ We got the 
fact from Podge’s bed-ridden brother, a scamp who 
destroyed his health by excesses and came back on 
Podge for support. Knowing how corruptible he was, 
1 got access to him and paid him out of your funds to 
wheedle out of Podge all that Lady Agnes told her. 
She had no idea that her brother communicated with 
any person, as he was unable to walk, and she told him 
for his amusement secrets she never dreamed could go 
out of the house. We corresponded with him by mail.” 

“Calvin,” wrote Duff Salter, “you never thought 
of these things yourself.” 

“ To give the devil his credit, my brother’s wife 
suggested that device.” 

" Jericho-o-o-o-h !” 

Duff Salter was himself again. 

“ Well, Salter,” continued the heir-apparent of Ken- 
sington, “we laid our heads together, and the mys- 
tery continued to deepen why Andrew Zane infested 
the residence of his murdered father if he never re- 
vealed himself to the woman he had loved. Not until 
the discovery that Agnes Wilt had been ruined could 
we make that out.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 233 


They were both looking at each other intently as 
Duff Salter read the last sentence. 

“ It then became plain to us,” continued Calvin, 
“ that Andrew Zane wanted to abandon the woman 
he had seduced, as was perfectly natural. He haunt- 
ed and alarmed the house and kept informed on all its 
happenings, but cut poor Agnes dead.” 

“ The infamous scoundrel !” exclaimed Duff Salter, 
looking very dark and serious. 

“ Now, Salter,” continued Calvin, “ we had a watch 
set on that ridge of roofs every night, and another one 
at the old Zane house, front and rear, and the appari- 
tion on the roof was so irregular that we could not un- 
derstand what occasions it took to come out until we 
observed that whenever your servant was out of the 
neighborhood a whole night, the roof-walker was sure 
to descend into Zane’s trap.” 

‘‘ Jer-i-cho-ho-ho !” 

“ To-night, as we have made ourselves aware, your 
servant is not in Kensington. We saw him off to 
Treaty Island. I am watching at this window for the 
man on the roof. The moment he leaves the trap- 
door of the tenant’s house, it will be entered by of. 
fleers at the waving of this lamp at my window. One 
officer will proceed along the roof and station himself 
on the Zane trap, closing that outlet. At the same 
time the Zane house will be entered front and rear 
and searched. The time is due. It is midnight. 
Come !” 

Calvin pointed to a ladder that led from the corner 
of his study to the roof, and Duff Salter nodded his 
head acquiescently. 


234 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


They went up the ladder and thrust their heads into 
the soft night of early summer. 

There was starlight, but no moon. 

The engine bell just ceased to toll as they looked 
forth on the scattered suburb, and at points beheld the 
Delaware flowing darkly, indicated by occasional lights 
of vessels reflected upward, and by the very distant 
lamps on the Camden shore. 

Most of the houses within the range of vision were 
small, patched, and irregular, except where the black 
walls of the even blocks on some principal streets 
strode through. 

Scarcely a sound, except the tree frogs droning, dis- 
turbed the air, and Kensington basked in the midnight 
like some sleeping village of the plains, stretching out 
to the fields of cattle and the savory truck farms. 

Duff Salter mentally exclaimed : 

“ Here, like two angels of good or evil, we spy 
upon the dull old hamlet, where nothing greater has 
happened than to-night since the Indians bartered 
their lands away for things of immediate enjoyment. 
Are not most of these people Indians still, ready to 
trade away substantial lands of antique title for the 
playthings of a few brief hours ? Yes, heaven itself 
was signed away by man and woman for the juices of 
one forbidden fruit. Here, where the good old pastor, 
like another William Penn, is running his stakes be- 
yond the stars and peopling with angels his possessions 
there, the savage children are occupied with the trifles 
of lust, covetousness, and deceit. They are no worse 
than the sons of Penn, who became apostates to his 
charity and religion before the breath had left his 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 235 


body. So goes the human race, whether around the 
Tree of Knowledge or Kensington’s Treaty Tree.” 

Duff Salter felt his arm pulled violently, and heard 
his companion whisper, 

“ There ! Do you see it ?” 

Across the street, only a few hundred feet distant, 
an object emerged from the black mass of the buildings 
and moved rapidly along the opposite ridge of houses 
against the sky, drawing nearer the two watchers as it 
advanced, and passing right opposite. 

Duff Salter made it out to be a woman or a figure in 
a gown. 

It looked neither to the right nor left, and did not 
stoop nor cower, but strode boldly as if with right to 
the large residence of the Zanes, where in a minute it 
faded away. 

Duff Salter felt a little superstitious, but Calvin Van 
de Lear shot past him down the ladder. 

Duff heard the curtain at the window thrown up as 
the divinity student flashed his lamp and saw the door 
of the house whence the apparition had come, forced 
by the police. 

As he descended the ladder Calvin Van de Lear ex- 
tended Duff’s hat to him, and pointed across the way. 

They were not very prompt reaching the door of the 
Zane residence,, but were still there in time to employ 
Duff Salter’s key, instead of violence, to make the 
entry. 

“ Gentlemen,” said the deaf man, with authority, 
“ there is no occasion of any of -you pressing in here to 
alarm a lady. Mr. Van de Lear and myself will make 
the search of the house which you have already guard- 


236 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


ed, front, back, and above, and rendered it impossible 
for the object of your warrant to escape.” 

The dignity and commanding stature of Duff Salter 
had their effect. 

Calvin Van de Lear and Duff Salter entered the silent 
house, lighted the gas, and walked from room to room, 
finally entering the apartment of Duff Salter himself. 

There sat Mike, the serving-man, in his red hair, 
uneven eyebrows, crutch, and wooden leg, as quietly 
arranging the models of vessels and steamers as if he 
had not anticipated a midnight call nor ceased his labor 
since Duff Salter had gone out. 

“ Damnation!” exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, pale 
with exertion and rage, “ are you here ? I thought you 
were at Treaty Island.” 

“ Misther Salter,” said the Irishman, ” I returned, 
do you see, because I forgot something and wanthed a 
drop of your brandy, sur. ” 

Duff Salter walked up to the speaker and seized him 
by the lapels of his coat, and placing the other hand 
upon his head, tore off the entire red-haired scalp 
which covered him. 

“ Andrew Zane,” said Duff Salter in a low voice, 
“ your disguise is detected. Yield yourself like a man 
to your father’s executor. You are my prisoner !” 

• 

CHAPTER IX. 

IN COURT. 

Agnes Wilt awoke and said her prayers, unconscious 
of any event of the night. At the breakfast-table she 
met Duff Salter, who took both her hands in his. 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 237 


“Agnes,” said Duff Salter — “let me call you so 
hereafter — did you hear the bell toll last night ?” 

“ No,” she replied with agitation. “ For what, Mr. 
Salter ?” 

“ The good priest of Kensington is dying.” 

“ Beloved friend !” she said, as the tears came to 
her eyes. “ And must he die uncertain of my blame 
or innocence ? Yet he will learn it in that wiser 
world !” 

“ Agnes, I require perfect submission from you for 
this day. Will you give it in all things ?” 

She looked at him a moment in earnest reflection, 
and said finally : 

“ Yes, unless my conscience says ‘ no.’ ” 

“ Nothing will be asked of you that you cannot 
rightfully do. Decision is what is needed now, and I 
will bring you through triumphantly if you will obey 
me.” 

“I will.” 

“ At eleven o’clock we must go to the magistrate’s 
office. I will walk there with you.” 

“ Am I to be arrested ?” she asked, hesitating. 

“ If you go with me it will not be an arrest.” 

“ Mr. Salter,” she cried, in a burst of anguish, “ I 
am not fit to be seen upon the streets of Kensington.” 

He took her in his arms like a daughter. 

“ Yes, yes, poor girl ! The mother of God braved 
no less. You can bear it. But all this morning I 
must be closely engaged. An important event hap- 
pened last night. At eleven, positively, be ready to 
go out with me.” 

Agnes was ready, and stepped forth into the daylight 


238 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


on the main thoroughfare of Queen Street. Almost 
every window was filled with gazers ; the sidewalks 
were lined with strollers, loiterers, and people waiting. 
She might have fainted if Duff Salter’s arm had not 
been there to sustain her. 

A large fishwife, with a basket on her head, was 
standing beside her comely grown daughter, who had 
put her large basket down, and both devoured Agnes 
with their eyes. 

“ Staying in the house, Beck,” exclaimed the mother 
of the girl, “ has been healthy for some people.” 

“Yes, mammy,” answered the girl; “it’s safer 
standing in market with catfish. He ! he ! he !” 

A shipbuilder’s daughter was on the front steps, a 
slender girl of dark, smooth skin and features, talking 
to a grown boy. The girl bowed : “ How do you do, 
Miss Agnes ?” The grown boy giggled inanely. 

Two old women, near neighbors of Agnes, had their 
spectacles wiped and run out to a proper focus, and 
the older of the two had a double pair upon her most 
insidious and suspicious nose. As Agnes passed, this 
old lady gave such a start that she dropped the specta- 
cles off her nose, and ejaculated through the open 
window, “ Lord alive !” 

At Knox Van de Lear’s house the fine-bodied, feline 
lady with nictitating eyes, drew aside the curtain, 
even while the dying man above was in frigid waters, 
that she might slowly raise and drop her ambrosial lids, 
and express a refined but not less marked surprise. 
Agnes, by an excitement of the nerves of apprehension, 
saw everything while she trembled. She could read 
the dates of all the houses on the painted cornices of 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


2 3 9 


the water-spouts, and saw the cabalistic devices of old 
insurance companies on the property they covered. 
Pigeons flying about the low roofs clucked and 
chuckled as if their milky purity had been incensed, 
and little dogs seemed to draw near and trot after, too 
familiarly, as if they scented sin. 

There were two working-men from Zane & Rainey’s 
shipyard who had known kindness to their wives from 
Agnes when those wives were in confinement. Both 
took off their hats respectfully, but with astonishment 
overwhelming their pity. 

Half the fire company had congregated at one corner 
of the street — lean, runners of men in red shirts, and 
with boots outside their trousers. They did not say a 
word, but gazed as at a riddle going by. Yet at one 
place a Sabbath scholar of Agnes came out before 
her, and, making a courtesy, said : 

“ Teacher, take my orange blossom !’* 

The flower was nearly white, and very fragrant. 
Duff Salter reached out and put it in his button-hole. 

So excited were the sensibilities of Agnes that it 
seemed to her the old door-knockers squinted ; the 
idle writing of boys on dead walls read with a hidden 
meaning ; the shade-trees lazily shaking in summer 
seemed to whisper ; if she looked down, there now and 
then appeared, moulded in the bricks of the pavement, 
a worn letter, or a passing goose foot, the accident of 
the brickyard, but now become personal and inten- 
tional. The little babies, sporting in their carriages 
before some houses, leaned forward and looked as wise 
and awful as doctors in some occult diagnosis. Cart- 
wheels, as they struck hard, articulated, “ What, out ! 


240 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Boo ! boohoo !” Sunshine all slanted her way. Huck- 
sters’ cries sounded like constables’ proclamation : 
“ Oyez ! oyez !” 

With the perceptions, the reflections of Agnes were 
also startlingly alert. She seemed two or three un- 
fortunate people at once. Now it was Lady Jam 
Grey going to the tower. Now it was Beatrice Cenci 
going to torture. Now it was Mary Magdalene going 
to the cross. At almost every house she felt a kind- 
ness speak for her, except mankind ; a recollection of 
nursing, comforting, praying with some one, but all 
forgotten now. “ Via Crucia , Via Crucia ,” her thorn- 
torn feet seemed to patter in the echoes of her ears and 
mind, and there arose upon her spirit the sternest curse 
of women, direful with God’s own rage, “ I will 
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.” 

Thus she reached the magistrate’s little office, around 
the door of which was a little crowd of people, 
and Duff Salter led her in the private door to the resi- 
dence itself. A cup of tea and a decanter of wine were 
on the table. The magistrate’s wife knew her, and 
kissed her. Then Agnes broke down and wept like a 
little child. 

The magistrate was a lame man, and a deacon in 
Van de Lear’s church, quite gray, and both prudent 
and austere, and making use of but few words, so that 
there was no way of determining his feelings on the 
case. He took his place behind a plain table and 
opened court by saying, 

“ Who appears ? Now !” 

Duff Salter rose, the largest man in the court-room. 
His long beard covered his whole bieast-bone ; his fine 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


241 


intelligent features, clear, sober eyes, and hale, house- 
bleached skin, bore out the authority conceded to him 
in Kensington as a rich gentleman of the world. 

“Mr. Magistrate,” said Duff Salter, “this exami- 
nation concerns the public and the ends of justice only 
as bears upon the death of the late citizens of Kensing- 
ton, William Zane and Saylor Rainey. It is apre- 
liminary examination only, and the person suspected 
by public gossip has not retained counsel. With your 
permission, as the executor of William Zane, I will 
conduct such part of the inquiry here as my duty 
toward the deceased, and my knowledge of the evi- 
dence, notwithstanding my frontier notions of law, 
suggest to me.” 

“You prosecute?” asked the magistrate, and 
added, “Yes, yes ! I will !” 

Calvin Van de Lear got up and bowed to the magis- 
trate. 

“ Your Honor, my deep interest in Miss Agnes Wilt 
has driven me to leave the bedside of a dying parent 
to see that her interests are properly attended to in this 
case. Whenever she is concerned I am for the de- 
fence.” 

“ Yes !” exclaimed the magistrate. “ Salter, have 
you a witness ?” 

“ Mike Donovan !” called Duff Salter. 

A red-haired Irishman, with one eyebrow higher 
than the other, and scars on his face, walked into the 
alderman’s court from the private room, and was 
sworn. 

“ Donovan,” spoke Duff Salter, standing up, “ re- 
late the occurrences of a certain night when you rowed 


242 THE DEAF MAN OF HENSING TON 


the prisoner, Andrew Zane, and certain other persons, 
from Treaty Island to an uncertain point in the River 
Delaware.” 

“ Stop ! stop !” exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, ris- 
ing. “ It seems to me I have seen that fellow’s face 
before. Donovan, hadn’t you a wooden leg when last 
I saw you ?” 

“ No doubt of it,” answered the Irishman. 

“ Why haven’t you got it on now ?” cried Calvin, 
scowling. 

“ Because, yer riverence, me own legs was plenty 
good* enough on this occasion.” 

“ Now, now, I won’t !” ordered the sententious lit- 
tle magistrate. 

“ Proceed with the narrative,” cried Duff Salter, 
“ and repeat no part of the conversation in that 
boat.” 

” It was a dark and lowering night,” said the water- 
man, ‘‘as we swung loose from Traity Isle. I sat a 
little forward of the cinlre, managing the oars. Mr. 
Andrew Zane was in the bow, on the watch for difficul- 
ties. In the stern sat the boss, Mr. William Zane. 
Between him and me — God’s rest to him ! — sat the 
murdered gintleman, well-beloved Saylor Rainey ! 
The tide was running six miles an hour. We steered 
by the lights of Kinsington.” 

“ Then you are confident,” said Duff Salter, “ that 
the whole length of the skiif separated William Zane 
from his son ?” 

“ As confident, yer honor, as that the batteau had 
two inds. They niver were nearer, the one to the 
tother, than that, for the whole of the ixpidition. And 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 243 


scarcely one word did Mr. Andrew utter on the whole 
ov that bloody passage.” 

“ Say nothing, for the present, about any conversa- 
tions,” comitianded Duff Salter, “ but go on with the 
occurrences briefly.” 

“ I had been a very little while, ye must understand 
me, gintlemen, in the imploy of thim two partners. 
After they entered the boat they spoke nothing at all, 
at all, for siveral minutes. It was all I could do wid 
the strong tide to keep the boat pinted for Kinsington, 
and I only noticed that Mr. Rainey comminced the 
conversation in a low tone of voice. Just at that time, 
or soon afterward, your Honor, a large vessel stood 
across our bow, going down stream in the night, and I 
put on all my strength, at Mr. William Zane’s order, to 
cross in front of her, and did so. I was so afraid the 
ship would take us under that I put my whole attintion 
to my task, not daring to disobey so positive a boss as 
Mr. Zane, though it was agin my judgment, indade.” 

All in the court and outside the door and windows 
were giving strict attention. Even Andrew Zane, 
whose face had been rather sullen, listened with a pale 
spot on his cheeks. 

“Go on,” said Duff Salter gently. “You relate 
it very well.” 

“ As we had cleared the ship, gintlemen, I paused 
an instant to wipe the sweat from my brows, though it 
was a cold night, for I was quite spint. I then per- 
ceived that Mr. Rainey and the master were disputing 
and raising their voices higher and higher, and what 
surprised me most of all, your Honor, was the unusual 
firmness of Mr. Rainey, who was ginerally very obedi- 


241 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


ent to the boss. He faced the boss, and would not 
take his orders, and I heard him once exclaim : 

‘ Shame on you, sir ; he is your son !’ ” 

“ Stop ! stop !” cried Duff Salter. “You were not 
to repeat conversations What next ?” 

“ In the twinklin’ of an eye,’’ resumed the witness, 

“ the masther had sazed his partner by the throat and 
called him a villain. They both stood up in the boat, 
the masther’s hand still in Mr. Rainey’s collar, and 
for an instant Mr. Rainey shook himself loose and 
cried — ’’ 

“ Not a word !’’ exclaimed Duff Salter. “ What 
was done V ’ 

“ Mr. Rainey cried out something, all at once. The 
masther fetched a terrible oath and fell back upon his 
seat. ‘ You assisted in this villainy ! ’ he shouted. 
They clinched, and I saw something shine dimly in 
Mr. William Zane’s hand. The report told me what it 
was. I lifted one oar in a feeling of horror, and the 
boat swung round abruptly on the blade of the other, 
and Mr. Rainey, released from the masther’s grip, fell 
overboard in the dark night.’’ 

Nothing was said by any person in the court except 
a suppressed “ Bah !’’ from Calvin Van de Lear. 

“ Silence ! Order ! I won’t !’' exclaimed the lame 
magistrate, rising from his seat. “ Now ! Go on !’’ 

“ I dropped both oars in me terror, and one of them 
floated away in the dark. We all stood up in the boat. 

‘ My God ! ’ exclaimed the masther, ‘ what have I 
done ? ’ As quick as the beating of my heart he placed 
the pistol at his own head. I saw the flash and heard 
the report. Mr. William Zane fell overboard.’’ 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 245 


There was a shudder of horror for a moment, and 
then a voice outside the window, hoarse and cheery, 
shouted to the outer crowd, “Andrew is innocent! 
Three cheers for Andrew Zane !” 

The people in and out of the warm and densely- 
pressed office simultaneously gave cheers, calling others 
to the scene, and the old magistrate, lame as he was, 
arose and looked happy. 

“ No arrests !” he cried. “ Right enough ! Good ! 
Now, attention !” 

But Andrew Zane kept his seat with an expression 
of obstinacy, and glared at Calvin Van de Lear, who 
was trembling with rage. 

“ Well got up, on my word !’’ exclaimed Calvin. 
“ Who is this fellow ?” 

“ Go on and finish your story !” commanded Duff 
Salter. 

“ God forgive Mike Donovan, your Honor !” con- 
tinued the witness. “ I’m afraid if Mr. William Zane 
had been the only man overboard I wouldn’t have 
risked me life. He was a hard, overbearin’ masther. 
But I thought of his poor son, standin’ paralyzed-like, 
and the kind Mr. Rainey drownin’ in the wintry water, 
and I jumped down in the dark flood to rescue one or 
both. From that day to this, the two partners I never 
saw. It was months before I saw America at all, or 
the survivin’ okkepant of the boat.” 

“ You may explain how that came to be,” intimated 
Duff Salter, grimly superintending the court. 

“ Well, sir ! As I dived from the skiff my head en- 
countered a solid something which made me see a 
thousand flashes av lightning in one second. I was so 


246 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


stunned that I had only instinct — I belave ye call it 
that — to throw my ar-rum around the murthering ob- 
ject and hold like death. Ye know, judge, how 
drownin’ men will hold to straws. That straw, yer 
Honor, was the spar of a vessel movin’ through the 
water. It was, I found out afterward, one of the 
pieces which had wedged the ship on the Marine Rail- 
way, where she had been gettin’ repaired, and she cornin’ 
off hurriedly about dusk, had not been loosened from 
her. I raised my voice by a despairin’ effort, and 
screamed ‘ Help ! help !’ When I came to I was on an 
Austrian merchant ship, bound to Wilmington, North 
Carolina, for naval stores, and then to Tiieste. The 
blow of the spar had given me a slight crack av the 
skull.” 

44 That crack is wide open yet,” said Calvin Van de 
Lear. 

44 Begorra,” returned the Irishman, facing placidly 
around until he found the owner of the voice, 44 Mr. 
Calvin Van de Lear, it would take many such a blow, 
sur, to fracture your heart !” 

44 Go on now, Donovan, and finish your tale. You 
were carried off to Trieste ?” spoke Duff Salter. 

44 I was, sir. At Wilmington no news had been re- 
caved of any tragedy in Philadelphia, and when I told 
my story there to a gentleman he concluded I was rav- 
in’ and a seein’ delusions. The Austrian was short av a 
crew, and the docthor said if they could get away to 
sea he could make me effective very soon. I was too 
helpless to go on deck or make resistance. Says I, 
4 It’s the will av God.’ ” 

A round of applause greeted this story as it was end- 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


247 


ed, and cheerful hands were extended to the witness 
and the prisoner. Calvin Van de Lear, however, ex- 
claimed : 

“ Alderman, what has all this to do with the prison- 
er’s ignominious flight for months from his home and 
from persons he abandoned to suspicion and shame ? 
This man is an impostor.” 

“Will you take the stand, Mr. Andrew Zane ?” 
asked Duff Salter. 

“ No,” replied the late fugitive. “ I have been 
hunted and slandered like a wolf. I will give no evi- 
dence in Kensington, where I have been so shamefully 
treated. Let me be sent to a higher court, and there I 
will speak.” 

“ Alas !” Duff Salter said, with grave emphasis, “ it 
is you father’s old and obstinate spirit which is speak- 
ing. You- are the ghost I thought was his at the door 
of my chamber. Mr. Magistrate, swear me !” 

Duff Salter gravely kissed the Testament and stood 
ready to depose, when Calvin Van de Lear again inter- 
rupted. 

“ Are you not deaf?” asked the divinity student. 
‘‘Where are your tablets that you carry every day ? 
You seem to hear too well, I consider.” 

“ You are right,” cried Duff Salter, turning on his 
interrogator like a lion. ‘‘I am wholly cured of deaf- 
ness, and my memory is as acute as my hearing.” 

Calvin Van de Lear turned pale to the roots of his 
dry, yellow whiskers. 

‘‘ Devil !” he muttered. 

“ My testimony covers only a single point,” resumed 
the strong, direct, and imposing witness. “ I saw the 


248 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


face of this prisoner for the first time since his baby- 
hood in his father’s house not many weeks ago. It re- 
sembled his father’s youthful countenance, as I knew 
it, so greatly that I really believed his parent haunted 
the streets of Kensington, according to the rumor. 
The supposed apparition drove me to investigate the 
mysterious death of William Zane. I believed that 
Agnes knew the story, but was under this prisoner’s 
command of secrecy. Seeking an assistant, the wit- 
ness, Donovan, forced himself upon me. In a short 
time I was confounded by the contradictions of his be- 
havior. Looking deeper into it, I suspected that in his 
suit of clothing resided at different times two men : the 
one an agent, the other a principal ; the one a reality, 
the other a disguise. I armed myself and had the 
duller and less observant of these doubles row me out 
upon the Delaware on such a night as marked the 
tragedy he witnessed. When we reached the middle 
of the river I forced the story of the coincidence from 
him by reasoning and threats.” 

“ Ha ! ha !” exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear. “ Is 
this an Arkansas snake story ?” 

‘ ‘ The young Zane had gratified a wilful passion to 
penetrate the residence of his father, and look at its 
inmates and the situation from safe harborage there. 
He found that Donovan in his roving sailor’s life had 
played the crippled sea beggar in the streets of British 
cities, tying up his natural leg and fitting a wooden leg 
to the knee — a, trick well known to British ballad sing- 
ers. That leg was in Donovan’s sea-chest, as it had 
been left in this city, and also the crutch necessary to 
walk with it. Mr. Zane and Donovan had exchanged 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 249 


the leg and crutch, and the former matched his fellow 
with a wig and patches. Thus convertible, they had 
for a little while deceived everybody, but for further 
convenience Mr. Zane ensconced himself as a tenant 
in a neighboring house, and when the apparatus was in 
request by Donovan, he crossed on the roofs between 
the trap-doors, and still was master of his residence.” 

” What does all this disclose but the intrigue of de- 
spairing guilt ?” exclaimed young Van de Lear. ‘‘ He 
had destroyed the purity of a lady and abandoned her, 
and was afraid to show his real face in Kensington.” 

“ We will see as to that,” replied Duff Salter. “ I 
had hoped to respect the lady’s privacy, but Mr. Zane 
has refused to testify. Call Agnes Wilt.” 

All in the magistrate’s office rose at the mention of 
this name, only Andrew Zane keeping his seat amid 
the crowd. Calvin Van de Lear officiously sought to 
assist the witness in, but Duff Salter pressed him back 
and gave the sad and beautiful woman his arm. She 
was sworn, and stood there blushing and pale by turns. 

“What is your name?” asked Duff Salter gently. 
“ Speak very plain, so that all these good friends of 
yours may make no mistake.” 

“ My name,” replied the lady, “ is Agnes Zane. I 
am the wife of Mr. Andrew Zane.” 

“ Very good,” said Duff Salter soothingly. “ You 
are the wife of Andrew Zane ; wedded how long ago, 
madam ?” 

“ Eight months.” 

” Do you see any person in this court-room, Mrs. 
Zane, that you wish to identify? Let all be seated.” 

Poor Agnes looked timidly around the place, and saw 


250 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


a person, at whom all were gazing, rise and reach his 
arms toward her. 

“ Gracious God !** she whispered, “ is it he ?” 

“ It is, dear wife,” cried Andrew Zane. “ Come to 
my heart.” 


CHAPTER X. 

THE SECRET MARRIAGE. 

Reverend Silas Van de Lear was drawing his 
latest breaths in the house of one of his elder sons, 
and only his lips were seen to move in silent prayer, 
when a younger fellow-clergyman entering, to a cluster 
of his cloth attending there, said audibly : 

“ This is a strange denouement to the great Kensing- 
ton scandal, which has happened this afternoon.” 

The large, voluptuous lady with the slowly declining 
eyelids raised them quietly as in languid surprise. 

“ You mean the Zane murder ? What is it ?” asked 
a minister, while others gathered around, showing the 
ministry to have human curiosity even in the hour and 
article of death. 

44 Miss Agnes Wilt, the especial favorite of our dying 
patriarch here, was married to young Andrew Zane 
some time before his father died. There was no murder 
in the case. Zane the elder, in one of his frequent fits 
of wild and arrogant rage, which were little less than 
insanity, killed his partner, Rainey, and in as sudden 
remorse took his own life.” 

“ What was the occasion of Zane’s rage ?” 

“ That is not quite clear, but the local population 
here is in a violent reaction against the accusers of 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 251 


young Zane and his wife. The church recovers a val- 
uable woman in Agnes Zane.” 

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear had a vial of smelling salts 
in her hand, and this vial dropping suddenly on the 
floor called attention to the fact that the lady had a 
little swooning turn. She was herself again in a 
minute, and her eyes slowly unclosed and lifted their 
tender curtains prettily. 

‘‘I am so glad for dear Agnes,” she said with a 
natural loudness in that hushed room. “ It even made 
me forget papa to find Agnes innocent.” 

The dying minister seemed to catch the words. A 
ministerial colleague bent down to hear his low artic- 
ulation : 

” Agnes innocent !” said Silas Van de Lear, and 
strove to clasp his hands. “ The praying of the right- 
eous availeth much !” 

The physician said the good man’s pulse ceased to 
beat at that minute, and they raised around his scarcely 
cold remains a hymn to heaven. 

Mean time, at the alderman’s court, a surprising scene 
was witnessed. For a few minutes everybody was in a 
frenzy of delight, and Duff Salter was the hero of the 
hour. The alderman made no effort to discipline any 
person ; people hugged and laughed, and entreated to 
shake hands with Andrew Zane, and in the pleasing 
confusion Calvin Van de Lear slunk out, white as one 
condemned to be whipped. 

“ Now ! now ! We will ! Yes !” said the senten- 
tious old alderman. “ Come to order. Andrew Zane 
must be sworn !” 

At this moment the Kensington volunteer fire ap- 


252 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 

paratus stopped opposite the alderman’s office and 
began to peal its bells merrily. The young husband’s 
obstinacy slowly giving way, seemed to be gone entire- 
ly when, searching the room with his eye, he detected 
the flight of Calvin Van de Lear. He kissed the little 
book as if it were a box of divine balm, and raised his 
voice, looking still tenderly at Agnes, and addressing 
Duff Salter : 

“ Will you examine me, my father’s friend ?” 

“ Yes, now ! You will !” exploded the alderman. 

“ No, take your own method, thou alternate of the 
late Mike Donovan,” exclaimed Duff Salter with a 
smile. 

” I never thought there could be an excuse for my 
behavior,” said Andrew Zane,_‘‘ until this unexpected 
kind treatment had encouraged me. Indeed, my 
friends, I am in every alternative unfortunate. To de- 
fend myself I must reflect upon the dead. I will not 
make a defence, but tell my story plainly. 

” My father was a man of deeds — a kind, rude busi- 
ness man. He loved me and I worshipped him, though 
our apposite tempers frequently brought us in conflict. 
Neither of us knew how to curb the other or be curbed 
in turn. Above all things I learned to fear my father’s 
will ; it was invincible. 

“ My wife and I grew up in my widower father’s 
family, and fell in love, and had an understanding that 
at a proper season we would marry. That season 
could not be long postponed when Agnes’s increasing 
beauty and my ardor kept pace together. I sought an 
occasion to break the secret to my father, and his re- 
ception of it filled me with terror. ‘ Marry Agnes ! ’ he 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 253 


replied. ‘ You have no right to her. Your mother 
left her to me. I may marry her myself.’ 

“ If he had never formed this design before it was 
now pursued with his well-known tireless energy. The 
suggestion needed no other encouragement than her 
beauty, ever present to inflame us both. Her house- 
hold habits and society were to his liking ; he offered 
me everything but that which embraced all to me. 

‘ Go to Europe ! ’ he said. ‘ Take a wife where you 
will ; but Agnes you shall not have. I will give you 
money, pleasure, and independence, but I love where 
you have looked. Agnes will be your mother, not your 
wife ! ’ 

“ Alas ! gentlemen, this purpose of my father was 
not mere tyranny ; he loved her, indeed, and that was 
the insurmountable fact. My betrothed had too much 
reason to know it. We mingled our tears together and 
acknowledged our dependence and duty, but we loved 
with that youthful fulness which cannot be mistaken 
nor dissuaded. In our distress we went to that kind 
partner whom my father had raised from an apprentice 
to be his equal, and asked him what to do. He told 
us to marry while we could. Agnes preferred an open 
marriage as least in consequences, and involving every 
trouble in the brave outset. I hoped to wean my 
father from his wilfulness, and yet protect my affec- 
tion by a secret marriage, to which with difficulty I 
prevailed on my betrothed to consent. After our mar- 
riage I found my husband’s domain no less invaded by 
my father’s suit, until life became intolerable and it 
was necessary to speak. Poor, brave Rainey, feeling 
keenly for us, fixed the time and place. He had sel- 


254 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


dom crossed my father, and I trembled for his safety, 
but never could have anticipated what came to pass. 

“ Mr. Rainey said to us, ‘ I will tell your father, 
while we are crossing the river some evening in a bat- 
teau, that you and Agnes are married, and his suit is 
fruitless. He will be unable to do worse than sit still 
and bear it in the small limits of the boat, and before 
we touch the other shore will get philosophy from 
time and consideration.’ 

“ That plan was carried out. Shall I recount the 
dreadful circumstances again ? Spare me, I entreat 
you !” 

“ No, I won’t ! The whole truth !” exclaimed the 
stern magistrate. “ Tell it !” 

“You are making no mistake, my young friend,” 
said Duff Salter. “ It will all be told very soon.” 

“As we started from Treaty Island, on that dark 
winter night,” continued Andrew Zane, growing pale 
while he spoke, “ Mr. Rainey said to me, ' Go in the 
bow. You are not to speak one word. I will face 
your father astern.’ The oarsman, Donovan, had a 
hard pull. The first word I heard my father say was, 
‘ That is none of your affair.’ ‘ It is everybody’s 
affair,’ answered Mr. Rainey, * because you make it 
so. Behave like a gentleman and a parent. The 
young people love each other.’ ‘ I have the young 
lady’s affections,’ said my father. ‘ You are making her 
miserable,’ said Mr. Rainey, ‘ and are deceiving your- 
self. She begins to hate you.’ ‘You are an insolent 
liar ! ’ exclaimed my father. ‘ If you mix in this busi- 
ness I will throw you out of the firm.’ ‘ That is no in- 
timidation to me,’ answered his partner. ‘ Prosperity 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 255 


can never attend the business of a cruel and unjust 
man. I shall be a brother to Andrew and a father to 
Agnes, since you would defraud them so. William 
Zane, I will see them married and supported ! ’ . With 
that my father threw himself in mere physical rage 
upon Mr. Rainey. They both arose, and Mr. Rainey 
shook himself loose and cried, ‘ You are outwitted, 
partner. I saw them married ! They are man and 
wife ! ’ 

“ With this my father’s rage had no expression short 
of recklessness. He always carried arms, and was un- 
conquerable. His ready hand had sought his weapon, 
I think, hardly consciously. His dismay and indig- 
nation for an instant destroyed his reason at Mr. 
Rainey’s sudden statement of fact. 

“ My God ! can I further particularize on such a 
scene ? In a moment of time I saw before my eyes a 
homicide of insanity, a suicide of remorse ; and to end 
all, the sailor in the boat, as if set crazy by these oc- 
currences, leaped overboard also.” 

This narrative, given with rising energy of feeling by 
Andrew Zane, was heard with breathless attention. 
Andrew paused and glanced at his wife, whose face was 
bathed with the inner light of perfect relief. The 
greater babe of secrecy had ceased to travail with her. 

“ Mr. Magistrate,” said the young husband, “ as I 
am under my oath, I can only relate the acts which fol- 
lowed from the inference of my feelings. My first 
sense was that of astonishment too intense not to ap- 
pear unreal and even amusing. It seemed to me that 
if I would laugh out loud all would come back, as de- 
lusions yield to scepticism and mockery. But it was 


256 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


too cold not to be real, the scene and persons were too 
familiar to be erroneous. I had to realize that I was in 
one of the great and terrible occasional convulsions of 
human nature. Do you know how it next affected me ? 
With an instant’s sense of sublimity ! I said to my- 
self, ‘ How dared I marry so much beauty and woman- 
ly majesty ? Doing so, I have tempted the old gods 
and their fates and furies. 'This is poetical punish- 
ment for my temerity.’ Still all the while I was labor- 
ing at the one scull left in the boat while my brain was 
fuming so, and listening for sounds on the water. I 
heard the sailor cry twice, and then his voice fainted 
away. I began to weep at the oar while I strained 
upon it, and called ‘ Help ! ’ and implored God’s inter- 
vention. At last I sat down in the boat, worn out and 
in despair, and let it drift down all the city’s front* 
past lights and glooms and floating ice, and wished 
that I were dead. My father’s kindness and all our 
disagreements rose to mind, and it seemed God’s pun- 
ishment that I had married where his intentions were. 
Yet to know the truth of this, I said a prayer upon my 
knees in the wet boat while my teeth chattered, and 
before the end of my prayer had come I was thinking 
of my wife’s pure name, and how this would spot her 
as with stains of blood unless I could explain it. 

“ When I reached this stage of my exalted sensibili- 
ties I was nearly crazed. There had been no witness 
of our marriage except the minister, and he was 
already dead. We had been married at the country 
parsonage of an old retired minister beyond Oxford 
church, on the road from Frankford town, as we drove 
out one afternoon, and I prevailed with my conscien- 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 257 


tious wife to yield her scruples to our heart’s necessity. 

‘ Great God ! ’ I thought aloud — for none could hear 
me there — ‘ how dreadfully that secret marriage will 
compromise my wife ! Who will believe us without a 
witness of what I must assert — a story so improbable 
that I would not believe it myself ? I must say that I 
married my wife secretly from my father’s house, con- 
fessing deceit for both of us, and with Agnes’s religious 
professions, a sin in the church’s estimation. If there 
could be an excuse for me, the strict people of Ken- 
sington will accord none to her. They will charge on 
her maturer mind the whole responsibility, paint her in 
the colors of ingratitude, and find in her greatest 
poverty the principal motive. Yes, they may be 
wicked enough to say she compassed the death of my 
father by my hands, to get his property.’ 

“I had proceeded thus far when the terror of our 
position became luminous like the coming fire on a 
prairie, which shows everything but a way of escape. 

‘ Where is your father ? ’ they would ask of me in Ken* 
sington. ‘ He is drowned.’ ‘ How drowned ?’ ‘He 
shot himself. ’ ‘ Why did he shoot himself ? ’ * Be- 

cause I had married his ward.’ ‘ But his partner is 
gone too.’ ‘He is murdered.’ ‘Why murdered?’ 
‘ Because he interceded for me.’ ‘ Where is your wit- 
ness ? ’ ‘He has disappeared.' I saw the Wild im- 
probability of this tale, and thought of past notorious 
quarrels with my father ended by my voluntary ab- 
sence. There were but two points that seemed to 
stick in my nervous mind : ‘ It never would do to tell 
our marriage at that moment, and I must find that 
sailor, who might still be living.’ ” 


258 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 

44 He found me, sure enough, begorra !*' exclaimed 
Mike Donovan, giving the relief of laughter to that in- 
tense narrative. 

“ Cowardly as you may call my resolution, gentlemen, 
it was all the resolution I had left. To partake of the in- 
heritance left me by both partners in our house I feared 
to do. 4 Let us do the penance of suspicious separa- 
tion,’ I said to Agnes ; 4 as your husband I command 
you to let me go ! ’ She yielded like a wife, and stood 
my hostage in Kensington for all those melancholy 
months. I had just learned the place for which the 
bark which passed us on that eventful night had cleared, 
when the two bullet-pierced bodies were discovered in 
the ice. That night I sailed for Wilmington, North 
Carolina. When I arrived there the bark was gone for 
the Mediterranean, but I heard of my sailor, wounded, 
in her hospital. I sailed from Charleston for Cuba, 
and from Cuba to Cadiz, and thence I embarked for 
Trieste. At Trieste I found the ship, but Donovan 
had sailed for Liverpool. From Liverpool I tracked 
him to the River Plate, and thence to Panama. You 
will ask how I lived all those months ? Ask him.” 

He turned to Duff Salter. 

44 Mr. Magistrate,” spoke Duff Salter, a little con- 
fused. 44 I sent him drafts at his request. He knew 
me to be the resident executor, and wrote to me. I 
did it because of the pity I had for Agnes, and my 
faith in her assurance that he was innocent.” 

44 Good ! Yes !” exclaimed the magistrate. 44 I 
would have done the same myself.” 

44 I returned with my man,” concluded Andrew 
Zane. 44 I was now so confident that I did not fear ; 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 259 


but a hard obstinacy, coming on me at times, I know 
not how, impelled me to postpone my vindication and 
make a test of everybody. I was full of suspicion and 
bitterness — the reaction from so much undeserved 
anxiety. I was the ghost of Kensington, and the spy 
upon my guardian, but the unknown sentry upon my 
wife’s honor all the while. 

“ Magistrate !” — the young man turned to the aider- 
man, and his face flushed — “ is there no punishment at 
law for men, and women too, who have cruelly perse- 
cuted my wife with anonymous letters, intended to 
wound her brave spirit to the quick ?” 

“ Plenty of it,” said the magistrate. ” Yes, I will. 
I will warrant them all.” 

“ I will not forget it,” said Andrew Zane darkly. 

“ My husband, forget everything !” exclaimed Ag- 
nes. “ Except that we are happy. God has forgiven 
us our only deceit, which has been the temptation 
of many in dear old Kensington.” 

The old magistrate arose. “ Case dismissed,” he 
said : “ Dinner is ready in the next room for Mr. and 
Mrs. Zane, and Judge Salter. I fine you all a dinner. 
Yes, yes ! I will !” 

CHAPTER XI. 

TREATY ELM. 

Andrew Zane was leaning on his elbow, in bed, 
listening to the tolling bell for the old pastor of Ken- 
sington. He had not attended the funeral, fearing to 
trust his eyes and heart near Calvin Van de Lear, for 
the unruly element in his blood was not wholly stilled. 


260 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Good and evil, gratitude and recollection, contended 
within him, and Agnes just escaped from the long 
shadow of his father’s rage —had forebodings of some 
violence when the two young men should meet in the 
little thoroughfare of Kensington — the one with the ac- 
cumulated indignities he had suffered liable to be aroused 
by the other’s shallow superciliousness. Agnes had 
but one friend to carry her fears to — Him “ who 
never forsaketh.” She had not persisted that her hus- 
band should attend the old pastor’s funeral, whither 
Duff Salter escorted her, and going there, relieved from 
all imputation, her evidently wedded state was seen 
with general respect. People spoke to her as of old, 
congratulated her even at the grave, and sought to re- 
pair their own misapprehensions, suspicions, and severi- 
ties, which A^nes accepted without duplicity. 

Andrew Zane was leaning up in bed hearing the tolb 
ing bell when Agnes reappeared. 

“Husband,” she said, “only Knox Van de Lear 
was at the grave, of the pastor’s sons.” 

“ Ha !” exclaimed Andrew. 

“ He looked worse than grief could make him. A 
terrible tale is afloat in Kensington.” 

Husband and wife looked at each other a moment 
in silence. 

“ They say,” continued Agnes, “ that Calvin Van de 
Lear has fled with his broiher’s wife. That is the talk 
of the town. Professing to desire some clothing for 
the funeral, they took a carriage together, and were 
driven to Tacony yesterday, where the afternoon train, 
meeting the steamboat from Philadelphia, took them 
on board for New York.” 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


261 


Andrew fell back on his pillow. 

“ God has hedged me all around,” he answered. 
“ While Calvin Van de Lear lived in Kensington I 
was in revengeful temptation all the time. He has 
escaped, and my soul is oppressed no more. Do you 
know, Agnes, that the guilty accomplice of Calvin, his 
brother’s wife, wrote all the worst letters which anony- 
mously came through the post ?” 

Agnes replied : 

“ I never suspected it. My heart was too full of 
you. But Mr. Salter told me to-day that he unravelled 
it some time ago. Calvin Van de Lear showed him, in 
a moment of egotism, the conquest he had made over 
an unknown lady’s affections, and passages of the cor- 
respondence. The keen old man immediately identi- 
fied in the handwriting the person who addressed him 
a letter against us soon after his arrival in the East. 
But he did not tell me until to-day. How did you 
know she was the person ?’ ’ 

Andrew Zane blushed a little, and confessed : 

“ Agnes, she used to write to me. Seeing the anony- 
mous letters you received, I knew the culprit instantly. 
It was that which precipitated the flight. She feared 
that her anonymous letters would result in her arrest 
and public trial for slander, as they would have done. 
The magistrate promised me that he would issue his war- 
rant for every person who had employed the public 
mails to harass my wife, and when you entered this 
room my darker passions were again working to pun- 
ish that woman and her paramour.” 

“ Dearest, let them be forgotten. Yes, forgiven 
too. But poor Mr. Knox Van de Lear ! They have 


262 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


stolen his savings and mortgaged his household furni- 
ture, which he was confiding enough to have put in his 
wife’s name. That is also a part of the story related 
around the good pastor’s grave.” 

“ Calvin has not escaped,” exclaimed Andrew Zane. 
“ As long as that tigress accompanies him he has expia- 
tion to make. Voluptuous, jealous, restless, and, like 
a snake in the tightness of her folds and her noiseless 
approach, she will smother him with kisses and sell him 
to his enemies.” 

” Do you know her so well ?” asked Agnes placidly. 

“ Very well. She was corrupt from childhood, but 
only a few of us knew it. She grew to be beautiful, 
and had the quickened intelligence which, for a while, 
accompanies ruined women : the unnatural sharpening 
of the duplicity, the firmer grasp on man as the animal, 
the study of the proprieties of life, and apparent impa- 
tience with all misbehavior. Her timid voice assisted 
her cunning as if with a natural gentleness, and invited 
onward the man who expected in her ample charms a 
bolder spirit. She betook herself to the church for 
penance, perhaps, but remained there for a character. 
My wife, if I have suffered, it was, perhaps, in part 
because for every sin is some punishment ; that woman 
was my temptress also !” 

His face was pale as he spoke these words, but he 
did not drop his eyes. The wife looked at him with a 
face also paled and startled. 

“ Remember,” said Andrew Zane, “ that I was a 
man.” 

She walked to him in a moment and kissed his fore- 
head. 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 263 


“ I will haye no more deceit,” said Andrew. “That 
is why I give you this pain. It was long, my darling, 
before we loved.” 

“ That was the source, perhaps, of Lottie’s anger 
with me,” spoke Agnes. 

“ I think not. There was not a sentiment between 
us. It is the way, occasionally, that a very bad woman 
is made, by marriage or wealth, respectable, and she 
declares war on her own past and its imitators. You 
were pursued because you had exchanged deserts with 
her. You were pure and abused ; she was approved 
but tainted. Not your misfortunes but your goodness 
rebuked her, and she lashed you behind her alias, as 
every derfion would riot in lashing the angels.” 

“ My husband,” exclaimed Agnes, “ where did you 
draw such secrets from woman’s nature ? God has 
blessed you with wisdom. I felt, myself, by some in- 
tuition of our sex, that it was sin, not virtue, that took 
such pains to upbraid me.” 

“ I drew them from the old, old plant,” answered 
Andrew Zane ; “ the Tree of Knowledge of Good and 
Evil. Yonder, where I skimmed the surface of a bad 
woman ; here, where I am forgiven.” 

“ If you felt remorse,” said Agnes, “ you were not 
given up.” 

” After we were engaged that woman cast her eyes 
on my widowed father and notified me that I must not 
stand in her way. ‘ If you embarrass me by one 
word,’ she said to me in her pretty, timid way, but 
with the look of a lion out of her florid fringes, ‘ I will 
shatter your future hearthstone. You are not fit to 
marry a Christian woman like Agnes Wilt. I am good 


264 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


enough for you father — yes,’ she finished, with terrible 
irony, ‘ and to be your mother ! ’ Those words went 
with me around the world. Agnes, was I not pun- 
ished ?” 

“ To think that the son of so good a man should be 
bound to such a tyrant.” 

“Yes, she will make him steal for her, or worse. 
He will end by being her most degraded creature, 
leading and misleading to her. Theirs is an unreturn- 
ing path. God keep us all faithful !” 

Duff Salter became again mysterious. He sent for 
his trunks, and gave his address as the “ Treaty 
House,” on Beach Street, nearly opposite the monu- 
ment, only a square back from the Zane house. 

“ Andrew,” said Salter, when the young husband 
sought him there, “ I concluded to move because there 
will be a nurse in that house before midsummer. If I 
was deaf as I once was, it would make no difference. 
But a very slight cry would certainly pierce my restored 
sensibilities now.” 

The Treaty House was a fine, old-fashioned brick, 
with a long saloon or double parlor containing many 
curiosities, such as pieces of old ships of war, weapons 
used in Polynesia and brought home by old sea captains, 
the jaws of whales and narwhals, figure-heads from 
perished vessels, harpoons, and points of various naval 
actions. In those days, before manufactures had ex- 
tended up all the water streets, and when domestic war 
had not been known for a whole generation, the little 
low marble monument on the site of William Penn’s ; 
treaty with the Indians attracted hundreds of strangers, 
who moistened their throats and cooled their foreheads 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON . 265 


in the great bar parlor of the Treaty House. It was 
still a secluded spot, shady and dewy with venerable 
trees, and the moisture they gave the old brown and 
1 black bricks in the contiguous houses, some of them 
still stylish, and all their windows topped with marble 
or sandstone, gray with the superincumbent weight of 
time or neglect. Large rear additions and sunless side- 
yards carried out the idea of a former gentry. Some 
buttonwood trees, now thinning out with annual age, 
conveyed by their speckled trunks the notion of a 
changing social standard, white and brown, native and 
foreign, while the lines of maples stood on blackened 
boles like old retired seamen, bronzed in many voyages 
and planted home forever. But despite the narrow, 
neglected, shady street, the slope of Shackamaxon 
went gently shelving to the edges of long sunny 
wharves, nearly as in the day when Penn selected this 
greensward to meet his Indian friends, and barter tools 
and promises for forest levels and long rich valleys, 
now open to the sky and murmurous with wheat and 
green potato vines. 

Sitting before the inn door, on drowsy June after- 
noons, Duff Salter heard the adzes ring and hammers 
smite the thousand bolt-heads on lofty vessels, raised 
on mast-like scaffolds as if they meant to be launched 
into the air and go cleared for yonder faintly tinted 
spectral moon, which lingered so long by day, like the 
symbol of the Indian race, departed but lambent in 
thoughtful memories. Duff had grown superstitious ; 
he came out of the inn door sidewise, that he might 
always see that moon over his right shoulder for good 
luck. 


2 66 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


One morning Andrew Zane appeared at the Treaty 
House before Duff Salter had taken his julep, after the 
fashion of malarious Arkansas. 

“ Mr. Salter, it is all over. There is a baby at our 
house.” 

“ Girl ?” 

“ Just that !” 

“ I thought so,” exclaimed Duff Salter. “ It was 
truly mother’s labor, and ought to have been like 
Agnes. We will give her a toast.” 

“ In nothing but water,” spoke Andrew soberly. 
“ I hope I have sown my wild oats.” 

“ I will imitate you,” heartily responded Duff Sal- 
ter ; “ for it occurred to me in Arkansas that people 
shot and butchered each other so often because they 
threw into empty stomachs a long tumbler of liquor and 
leaves. You are well started, Andrew. Your father’s 
and his partner’s estate will give you an income of 
$10,000. What will you do ?” 

“ I have no idea whatever. My mind is not ready 
for business. My serious experience has been followed 
by a sort of stupor — an inquiry, a detached relation to 
everything. ” 

“ Let it be so awhile,” answered the strong, 
gray-eyed man. “ Such rests are often medicine, as 
sleep is. The mind will find its true channel some 
day.” 

‘‘Can I be of service to you, Mr. Salter? Money 
would be a small return of our obligations to you.” 

“ No, I am independent. Too independent ! I 
wish I had a wife.” 

“ Ah ! Agnes told me that besides seeing the baby 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 267 


when you came to the house, little Mary Byeily would 
be there. She is well enough to be out, and has lost 
her invalid brother.” 

“ If you see me blush, Andrew,” said Duff Salter, 
” you needn’t tell of it. I am in love with little Podge, 
but it’s all over. With no understanding of woman’s 
sensibilities, I shook that fragile child in my rude 
grasp, and frightened her forever. What will you call 
your baby ?” 

“ Agnes says it shall be Euphemia, meaning ‘ of good 
report.’ You know it came near being a young lady 
of bad report.” 

“ As for me, Andrew, I shall make the contract for 
the steeple and completion of the new church, and then 
take a foreign journey. Since I stopped sneezing I 
have no way to disguise my sensibilities, and am more 
an object of suspicion than ever.” 

Duff Salter peeped at the beautiful mother and hung 
a chain of gold around the baby’s neck, and was about 
slipping out when Podge Byerly appeared. She made 
a low bow and shrank away. 

“ Follow her,” whispered Andrew Zane. “ If she 
is cool now she will be cold hereafter, unless you nurse 
her confidence.” 

With a sense of great youthfulness and demerit, Duff 
Salter entered the parlors and found Podge sitting in 
the shadows of that thrice notable room where death 
and grief had been so often carried and laid down. 
The little teacher was pale and thin, and her eyes wore 
a saddened light. 

“ I am very glad to see you again,” said Duff Salter. 
“ I wanted your forgiveness.” 


268 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Striking the centre of sympathy by these few words, 
the late deaf man saw Podge’s throat agitated. 

“If you knew,’’ he continued, “how often I ac- 
cused myself since your illness, you would try to ex- 
cuse me.’’ 

After a little silence Podge said, 

“ I don’t remember just what happened, Mr. Salter. 
Was it you who sent me many beautiful and dainty 
things while I was sick ? I thought it might be.” 

“ You guessed me, then ? At least I was not forgot- 
ten.” 

“ I never forgot you, sir ; but ever since my illness 
you seem to have been a part of the dread river and its 
dead. I have often tried to restore you as I once 
thought of you, but other things rise up and I cannot 
see you. My head was gone, I suppose.” 

“ Alas, no ! I drove away your heart. If that would 
come back, the wandering head would follow, little 
friend. Are you afraid of me ?” 

“ Sometimes. One thing, I think, is your deafness. 
While you were deaf you seemed so natural that we 
talked freely before you, prattling out our fancies un- 
disguised. We wouldn’t have done it if we knew that 
you heard as well as we. That makes me afraid too. 
Oh ! why did you deceive us so ?” 

“ I only deceived myself. A foolish habit, formed 
in pique, of affecting not to hear, adhered to me long 
before we were acquainted. If you will let me drive you 
out into the country to-morrow I will tell you the 
whole of my silly story. The country roads are what 
you need, and I need your consideration as much.” 

The next day a buggy stopped at the door, and 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 269 


Podge, sitting at the window with her bonnet on, saw 
Duff Salter, hale and strong, holding the reins. She 
was helped into the buggy by Andrew Zane, and in a 
few minutes the two were in the open country pointing 
toward old Frankford. They rode up the long stony 
street of that old village, whose stone or rough-cast 
houses suggested the Swiss city of Basle whence the 
early settlers of Frankford came. Then turning 
through the factory dale called Little Britain, they 
sped out the lane, taking the general direction of 
Tacony Creek, and followed that creek up through 
different little villages and mill-seats until they came 
to nearly the highest mill-pond, in the stony region 
'about the Old York road. A house of gray and red- 
dish stones, in irregular forms, mortised in white plas- 
ter, sat broadside to the lawn before it, which was cov- 
ered with venerable trees, and bordered at the roadside 
by a stone rampart, so that it looked like a hanging 
lawn. A gate at the lawn-side gave admission to a 
lane, behind which was the ancient mill-pond suspend- 
ed in a dewy landscape, with a path in the grass lead- 
ing up the mill-race, and on the pond a little scow 
floated in pond-lilies. All around were chestnut trees, 
their burrs full of fruit. Across the lane, only a few 
feet from the house, the ancient mill gave forth a snor- 
ing and drumming together as if the spirit of solitude 
was having a dance all to itself and only breathing 
hard. Then the crystal water, shooting the old black 
mill-wheel, fell off it like the beard from Duff Salter’s 
face, and went away in pools and flakes across a 
meadow, under spontaneous willow trees which liked 
to stand in moisture and cover with their roots the 


270 THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


harmless water-snakes. A few cottages peeped over 
the adjacent ridges upon the hidden dale. 

tJ What a restful place!” exclaimed Podge Byerly. 
“ I almost wish I might be spirit of a mill, or better 
still, that old boat yonder basking in the pond-lilies 
and holding up its shadow !” 

“Iam glad you like it,” said Duff Salter. “ Let 
us go in and see if the house is hospitable.” 

As Podge Byerly walked up the worn stone walk of 
the lawn she saw a familiar image at the door — her 
mother. 

‘‘You here, mother?” said Podge. ‘‘What is the 
meaning of it ?” 

“ This is my house, my darling. There is our 
friend who gave it to us. You will need to teach no 
more. The mill and a little farm surrounding us will 
make us independent.” 

Podge turned to Duff Salter. 

“ How kind of you !” she said. ‘‘Yet it frightens 
me the more. These surprises, tender as they are, ex- 
cite me. Everything about you is mysterious. You 
are not even deaf as you were. What silly things you 
may have heard us say.” 

“ Dear girl,” exclaimed Duff Salter, “ nothing which 
I heard from your lips ever affected me except to love 
you. You cured me of years of suspicion, and I con- 
sented to hear again. The world grew candid to me ; 
its sounds were melodious, its silence was sincere. It 
is you who are deaf. You cannot hear my heart.” 

“ I hear no other’s, at least,” said Podge. *‘ Tell 
me the story of your strange deceit.” 

They drew chairs upon the lawn. Podge took off 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 271 


her bonnet and looked very delicate as her color rose 
and faded alternately in the emotions of one wooed in 
earnest and uncertain of her fate. 

“ I have not come by money without hard labor,” 
said the hale and handsome man. “ This gray beard 
is not the creation of many years. It is the fruit of 
anxiety, toil, and danger. My years are not double 
yours.” 

“You have recovered at least one of your faculties 
since I knew you,” said Podge slyly. 

“You mean hearing. The sense of feeling too, 
perhaps — which you have lost. But this is my tale : 
After I went to Mexico, and became the superintendent 
of a mine, I found my nature growing hard and my 
manner imperious, not unlike those of my dead friend, 
William Zane. The hot climate of Mexico and con- 
finement in the mines, hundreds of feet below the sur- 
face and in the salivating fumes of the cinnabar retorts, 
assisted to make me impetuous. I fought more than 
one duel, and, like all men who do desperate things, 
grew more desperate by experience until, upon one oc- 
casion, I was made deaf by an explosion in the bowels 
of the ground. For one year I could hear but little. 
In that year I was comparatively humble, and one day 
I heard a workman say, ‘ If the boss gets his hearing 
back there will be no peace about the mine.’ This set 
me to thinking. ‘ How much of my suspicion and 
anger,’ I said, ‘ is the result of my own speaking. I 
provoked the distemper of which I am afflicted. I 
start the inquiries which make me distrustful. I hear 
the echo of my own idle words, and impeach my fellow- 
man upon it. Until I find a strong reason for speech, I 


272 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


will remain deaf as I have been.’ That strong reason 
never arrived, my little girl, until all reason ceased to 
be and love supplanted it.” 

“ There is no reason, then, in your present passion,” 
said Podge dryly. 

“ No. I am so absolutely in love that there is no 
resisting it. It is boyishness wholly.” 

” I think I should be afraid of a man,” said Podge, 
“ who could have so much will as to hold his tongue 
for seven years. Suppose you had a second attack, it 
might never come to an end. What were you thinking 
about all that time ?” 

“ I thought how deaf, blind, and dumb was any one 
without love. I found the world far better than it had 
seemed when I was one of its chatterers. By my vol- 
untary silence I had banished the disturbing element 
in Nature ; for our enemy is always within us, not 
without. In that seven years, for most of which I 
heard everything and answered none, except by my 
pencil, I was prosperous, observant, sober, and consid- 
erate. The deceit of affecting not to hear has brought 
its penalty, however. You are afraid of me.” 

” Were you ever in love before ?” 

“ I fear I will surprise you again by my answer,’' 
said Duff Salter. “ I once proposed marriage to a 
young girl on this very lawn. It was in the spring- 
time of my life. We met at a picnic in a grove not far 
distant. She was a coquette, and forgot me.” 

Podge said she must have time to know her heart. 
Every day they made a new excursion, now into the 
country of the Neshaminy, and beyond it to the vales 
of the Tohicken and Perkiomen. They descended the 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON 


273 


lanes along the Pennypack and Poqessing, and followed 
the Wissahickon to its sources. Podge rapidly grew in 
form and spirits, and Agnes and Andrew Zane came 
out to spend a Saturday with them. 

Mean time Andrew Zane was in a mystic condition 
— uncertain of purpose, serious, and studious, and he 
called one night at the Treaty tavern to see Duff Sal- 
ter. Duff had gone, however, up the Tacony, and in 
a listless way Andrew sauntered over to the little monu- 
ment erected on the alleged site of the Indian treaty. 
He read the inscription aloud : 

“ Treaty Ground of William Penn and the Indian 
Nations, 1682. Unbroken Faith ! Pennsylvania, 
founded by deeds of Peace !” 

As Andrew ceased he looked up and beheld a man 
of rather portly figure, with the plain clothes of a 
Quaker, a broad-brimmed hat, knee-breeches, and 
buckled shoes. Something in his countenance was 
familiar. Andrew looked again, and wondered where 
he had seen that face. It then occurred to him that it 
was the exact likeness of William Penn. The man 
looked at Andrew and said, 

“ Thee is called to preach !” 

“ Sir ?” exclaimed Andrew. 

In the same tone of voice the man exclaimed, 

“ Thee is called to preach !” 

Andrew looked with some slight superstition at the 
peculiar man, with such a tone of authority, and said 
again, but respectfully : 

“ Do I understand you as speaking to me, sir ?” 

“ Thee is called to preach !” said the object, in pre- 
cisely the same tone of voice, and vanished. 


274 the DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 


Andrew Zane walked across to the hotel and saw 
Duff Salter, freshly arrived, looking at him intently. 

“ Did you see a person in Quaker dress standing by 
the monument an instant past ?” 

“I saw nobody but yourself,” said Duff heartily. 
“ I have been looking at you some moments.” 

“ As truly as I live, a man in Quaker dress spoke to 
me at the monument’s side.” 

“ What did he say ?” 

‘‘ He said three times, deliberately, * Thee is called 
to preach ! ’ ” 

“ That’s queer,” said Duff, looking curiously at An- 
drew. ” My friend, that man spoke from within you. 
Do you know that it is the earnest desire of your wife, 
and a subject of her prayers, that you may become a 
minister ?” 

“ I didn’t know it,” said Andrew. “ But there is 
something startling in this apparition. I shall never 
be able to forget it.” 

To the joy of Agnes, now a happy wife and mother, 
her husband went seriously into the church, and 'fhe 
moment his intention was announced of entering the 
ministry, there arose a spontaneous and united wish 
that he would take the pulpit in his native suburb. 

“ Agnes,” said the young man, ‘‘ the dangers I have 
passed, the tragedy of my family, your piety and my 
feelings, all concur in this step. I feel a new life within 
me, now that I have settled upon this design.” 

“ I would rather see you a good minister than Presi- 
dent,” exclaimed Agnes. ” The desires of my heart 
are fully answered now. When you saw the image stand- 
ing by the Treaty tree at that instant I was upon my 


THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON. 275 


knees asking God to turn your heart toward the minis- 
try.” 

“ Here in Kensington,” spoke Andrew, “ we will live 
down all imputation and renew our family name. 
Here, where we made our one mistake, we will labor for 
others who err and suffer. Such an escape as ours can 
be celebrated by nothing less than religion.” 

Duff Salter went to Tacony for the last time on the 
Sunday Andrew Zane entered the church. He did not 
speak a word, but at the appearance of Podge Byerly 
drew out the ancient ivory tablets and wrote : 

“ I’ll never speak again until you accept or refuse 
me.” 

She answered, “ What are you going to do if I say 
noV' 

“ I have bought two tickets for Europe,” wrote 
Duff Salter. “ One is for you, if you will accept it. 
If not I shall go alone and be deaf for the remainder 
of my days.” 

Podge answered by reaching out her lips and kissing 
Duff Salter plumply. 

” There,” she said, “ I’ve done it !” 

Duff Salter threw the tablets away, and standing up 
in a glow of excitement, gave with great unction his last 
articulate sneeze : 

“ Jericho ! Jericho !” 
























































































































THE DEAD BOHEMIAN. 



THE DEAD BOHEMIAN. 


My hope to take his hand, 

His world my promised land, 

I thought no face so beautiful and high. 
When he had called me “ Friend,” 

I reached ambition’s end, 

And Art’s protection in his kindly eye. 

My dream was quickly run — 

I knew Endymion ; 

HisAving was fancy and his soarings play ; 
No great thirsts in him pent, 

His hates were indolent, 

His graces calm and eloquent alway. 

Not love’s converse now seems 
So tender to my dreams 
As he, discursive at our mutual desk, 

Most fervid and most ripe. 

When dreaming at his pipe. 

He made the opiate nights grow Arabesque. 

His crayon never sharp, 

No discord in his harp, 

He made such sweetness I was discontent ; 
He knew not the desire 
To rise from warmth to fire, 

And with his magic rend the firmament. 


280 


THE DEAD BOHEMIAN . 


Perhaps some want of faith, 

Perhaps some past heart-scath, 

Took from his life the zest .of reaching far— 

And so grew my regret, 

To see my pride forget 
That many watched him like a risen star. 

Some moralist in man — 

Even Bohemian — 

Feathers the pen and nerves the archer too. 

Not dear decoying art, 

But the crushed, loving heart, 

Makes the young life to its resolves untrue. 

Therefore his haunts were sad ; 

Therefore his rhymes were glad ; 

Therefore he laughed at my reproach and goad — 
With listless dreams and vague, 

Passed not the walls of Prague, 

To hew some fresh and individual road. 

Still like an epic round, 

With beautifulness crowned, 

I read his memory, tenderer every year. 

Complete with graciousness. 

Gifted and purposeless, 

But to my heart as some grand Master dear. 


THE END. 


THREE BRILLIANT STORIES. 



HOLLY & CO., Publishers, 

242 West Twenty-third Street, 
3NTH3W YORK. 



Books of Geo. Alfred Townsend 

IN PRINT ; 

Tales of the Chesapeake. 

Cloth, 285 pages, with delicate artotype portrait of 
the author, $1. 

Washington , Outside and Inside. 

A Picture and a Narrative of the Capital City, in 
forty chapters. 750 large octavo pages. Illus- 
trated. Price, cloth, plain, $3 ; sheep, $3.50; half 
turkey morocco, $4.50. 

The New World Compared with the Old ► 

A book of vivid international comparisons. Eighty 
thousand of this book have been sold. Illus, 
trated. 663 large octavo pages. Price, cloth 
$3 ; sheep, $3.50 ; half turkey morocco, $4.50. 

Lost Abroad. 


A Story of Americans in Europe in 1866, with 
brilliant descriptions of scenery, cities, war, and 
events. Price, cloth, plain, $2 ; gilt, $2.50. 

Bohemian Days. 

Three American Tales. Cloth, $1. 


Any of the foregoing books will be sent , postage prepaid by the 
publishers , on receipt of money or postal 
order , addressed to 

GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND, 

242 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST >'FW C T,T ’Y 


A Literary Revelation. 

Tales of the Chesapeake. 

By Geo. Alfred Townsend , 

[“ Gath.”] 


THIRD EDITION 


VIEWS OF WRITING MEN. 


“ I read it more than half through 
the first evening, picking out the 
plums, such as 1 The Big Idiot,’ and 
greatly enjoyed the entertainment.” 
— S. L. Clemens {Mark Twain). 

“ Its interest induced my consecu- 
tive perusal of its whole contents at a 
night’s sitting. A certain varying 
but never quite interrupted continuity 
of local tone commends it as so many 
integral chapters of one unusual nar- 
rative. I may, however, particularize 
some of the distinguishing captions as 
having introduced me to bits of per- 
sonal characterization and graphic de- 
scription, particularly grateful to my 
literary appetite. The quaint old- 
time information of the ‘Ticking- 
Stone’ and ‘The Big Idiot,’ the fan- 
tastical ingenuities of ‘Dominion over 
the Fish,’ the dramatic imagination 
of ‘ The King of Chincoteague,’ the 
true ballad rattle and movement ot 
* Herman of Bohemia Manor,’ the 
high sentiment and fine rhythm ot 
‘ Potomac River,’ the picturesque 
fidelity and spontaneous humor of 
‘ Preacher’s Sons in 1849,’ the kindly 
Goldsmithianism of ‘ The Circuit 
Preacher,’ the melodious cadences of 
‘Old St. Mary’s,’ all these are 
touches of the highest quality.” — R. 
II ■ Newell ( Orpheus C. Kerr). 

“ If the book is an oyster-shell, as 
you are pleased to term it, it is one, 1 
am sure, that has pearls in it. I have 
already found two, ‘ Herman of Bo- 
hemia Manor,’ and ‘ Old St. Mary’s.” 
— Prof Henry IV. Longfellow. 

“ I have read three of the tales — a 
large slice for me — and find them en- 
tertaining and altogether Gath-like. 
All he writes that I can lay hands on 
is always read eagerly.” — The Presi- 
dent ol the United States. 

“ Mr. Townsend has here collected 
the literary plant upon which his rep- 
utation for something other than a 
popular and brilliant newspaper corre- 
spondent will rest until, at all events. 


he follows it with such another. 
His subject is not any more to his ad- 
vantage than his treatment of it has 
been to his credit in refinement and 
simplicity. In both idea and form his 
stories are admirable. They have 
something of the peculiar flavor of 
Mr. Cable’s stories of the old Creole 
days in New Orleans, the faint and 
fleeting charm which belongs to a life 
and ideals marked by gentleness and 
simplicity. Mr. Townsend’s sym- 
pathy for the types he depicts is a 
trifle vivacious ; the Chesapeake air 
he loves, but he brings all his ‘ horse 
sense’ to bear in his thoroughly ob- 
jective treatment of the ante-bellum 
Chesapeake character ; sensitive 
Southern readers will perhaps miss 
Mr. Cable’s caressing tone and touch. 
Much of the verse is delightful, 
smooth and musical, yet using words 
with a nice, and not rarely a quaint, 
sense of their meaning.” — The Na- 
tion. 

“ The Beau Hickman story is good 
enough for Bret Harte or anybody 
else .” — Edmund C. Stedman. 

“ Of the stories I have read, the one 
with famous old Beau Hickman in it 
had, perhaps, most interest for me, 
especially on account of the portrait 
of that worthy, whom I have never 
seen. I do not know that I have 
ever got so much of a portrait of him 
before. The careful study of the dia- 
lects of our different regions again 
adds to the interest of the narrative.” 
— Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

‘‘I am prompted by the marked 
and peculiar ability exhibited in this 
work to say that its author should do 
something in the line of historical 
novels. Such works are better history 
than history itself, and serve much 
better -the true office of history. 
What stories he could tell with his 
knowledge of men and his wonderful 
pen ?” — Hon. Job E. Stevenson , of 
Cincinnati. 



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